


Enthralled

by ShadowKnight



Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Bukkake, Cum Play, Deepthroat, Double Penetration, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fingering, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Oral Sex, Pec Fucking, Polyamory, Porn With Plot, Sex Magic, Slow Burn, Threesome - M/M/M, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-08-30 08:38:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 26,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8526304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowKnight/pseuds/ShadowKnight
Summary: Gideon's search for Vraska leads him to meet a new planeswalker in Ravnica, a warrior gifted with emotional magic he does not fully control. As both men learn from each other and become friends, Gideon's struggle to remain stoic in the face of temptation grows more difficult every day. Jace, for his part, has a difficult time even acknowledging he feels emotions at all. Thankfully, good friends will be there when you need them.





	1. Staring At The Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place, chronologically, immediately after Chandra, Nissa and Liliana go off to Kaladesh. The male OC is a fanwalker. I basically took Enthralling Victor and made him a planeswalker; his powers are inspired by Red's domain over emotional magic.
> 
> The ratings and warnings intend to cover the story as a whole, not necessarily the first few chapters. It will get explicit eventually.
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated.

Investigation was not Gideon’s strongest suit. He wasn’t bad at it per se, but it was firmly out of his area of expertise. Following trails, picking up the scent of magic in the air, discerning whether people were lying or not, putting all the pieces together, it was all better suited to a mind mage than a warrior. Jace would’ve been a natural candidate for such things, but between his job as the Guildpact and his caution when it came to Vraska, it just wasn’t the job for him. Instead, Gideon was studying a neighbourhood from the vantage point of a rooftop. Jace had told him to look for a planeswalker in Blood’s Lusts, a Rakdos-controlled red light district. It was fortunate that this “Project Lightning Bug” had ended up in the hands of Ral-Zarek instead of a less scrupulous scientist, but Gideon did wonder how long they’d be able to maintain their secrecy from someone that was reputedly as brilliant as Niv-Mizzet. That was, however, a question for another time.

Generally, Rakdos areas were either very welcoming or very hostile to outsiders, depending on what transpired behind silken curtains. Red light districts tended to be the former, but it wouldn’t do to be rash. Gideon studied the patrons leaving the bars and brothels, the seedy dungeons and the “specialised” shops. He had begun to suspect it wasn’t Vraska he was tracking when he saw the clientele. No gorgons, almost no Golgari, and far too many Boros around, spending their hard-earned coin on supple flesh and hard muscle. There were even some Azorius clerks, but none that might make it appealing for an assassin to gather intel before a hit. Most Azorius tried to imitate the Orzhov’s expensive tastes as they frequented the more luxurious areas of Ravnica, and Blood’s Lusts was decidedly middle-class at best.

So if it wasn’t Vraska, it was a different planeswalker, most likely a new player on the field. Which meant it was important to bring them under the Gatewatch’s wing before they were discovered by Niv-Mizzet, Vraska or worse. The problem, then, was trying to find a stranger in a city as diverse and eclectic as Ravnica. Gideon was perched on a rooftop, concealing most of his bulk behind a gargoyle. People came and went, and everyone was mildly strange in their own way. Gideon found himself second-guessing his observations as he made mental notes of humans that looked too pale, ogres that looked too feral, or anyone wearing clothes that seemed out of place. _Could a homunculus ignite a planeswalker spark?_ was one of the things Gideon never thought he’d wonder.

In the end, Gideon needn’t have bothered. He had been thinking about people like Jace, physically unremarkable save for piercing blue eyes and a strange sense of fashion, or Chandra, whose goggles looked out of place but one couldn’t fathom her power until she set everything on fire. He had been mistaken. He should’ve thought of Nissa, with eyes vast like seas of green, or like Liliana, the kind of woman who walked into a crowd and the crowd parted for her.

The man who left the rowdy bar at the heart of the red light district, followed by cheers and boisterous shouting, was unmistakably foreign. And beyond that, he was eye-catching in a way Gideon hadn’t seen since his youth in Theros. Sometimes Gideon had dreams of demigods and chosen heroes, of muscles glinting like gold under the sun and charming, confident grins. He’d wake up achingly hard, yearning for something he was reluctant to seek out. And yet there it was, before him, a heroic epic given physical form.

The man looked tall, perhaps as tall as Gideon, with long dark hair that gleamed like silk under the streetlights and swayed gently with every step, not a lock out of place. His face had the kind of features that could make the timeless statues of Meletis pale in comparison, with high cheekbones and a sharp jawline, and his mouth was framed by short facial hair, as well as his chin and jaw. His eyes were brown and almond-shaped; they gazed upon Ravnica with a detached amusement that was echoed by his wry half-smile. He had a scar on his face, above his left eye, but instead of marring his handsomeness, it gave him a rugged, veteran look that a man so young couldn’t possibly attain. He filled out his clothes fairly well; they weren’t form-fitting, but the leathers and furs he wore were strapped around his body in such a way that Gideon could easily see the contour of his broad shoulders and the way his torso slimmed down to a thin waist and then powerful legs.

The way the man walked exuded confidence, he had the same effect on a crowd as Liliana did, people subconsciously gave way in his presence. Those that weren’t too distracted to notice him often stopped dead in their tracks to stare at him, transfixed by his ethereal handsomeness. It was like gazing upon a dream brought to life, a man made of every longing for a strong, brave warrior. Gideon’s breath came out ragged, he hadn’t realised he had been holding it. His eyes rove over the man, taking in the swagger in his motions, the elegant axe strapped to his back, the exposed collarbone that hinted at both another scar and well-developed musculature. It couldn’t be real. A part of Gideon’s mind recoiled in suspicion, but it was drowned out by the thundering pulse of his blood in his ears.

The hieromancer found himself leaning forward on his perch, unconsciously keeping the man in his line of sight as he walked down the street. There was an almost physical draw, and Gideon couldn’t tell if it was gravity or if the man exerted some sort of supernatural pull. Gideon had never been a particularly religious man, even when he had spoken with a literal god; it had all seemed understandable and mundane to him. Now, staring at a fantasy incarnated, he felt like he was in the presence of the divine. Gideon wanted to drop down and prostrate himself, he wanted to run his hands through that silky hair, to bury his face where neck met shoulder and inhale deeply, to lick a pilgrimage across the man’s skin, to get on his knees and worship his body with the devotion he had never felt towards Heliod or any of the other gods.

Gideon groaned in raw, muted yearning. His cock was straining against his pants so hard it was actually painful. He swayed forward, towards the edge. A feeling of vertigo gripped him and he instinctively pulled back. The man disappeared from his vision.

And then, it was as though a thick fog had lifted. Gideon shook his head, he felt his mind sluggish, his face flushed. It took him a good moment to regain his presence of mind, trying to shake off the feeling of _want_ that had suffused him. By the time he felt he could trust himself, Gideon crawled to the other side of the roof and looked down again. The man was making his way towards Gavarash Street, a venue known for its affordable inns. That it was within walking distance of an equally affordable red light district kept the whole street in business. Gideon dared to scrutinise the man again. He didn’t feel the same overpowering desire he had felt before, but there was an undeniable attraction remaining.

 _What is this magic? This is not real._ The planeswalker looked like an undeniably handsome, yet thankfully mundane man, from afar. He was even shorter than Gideon!

And yet, he knew he had to talk to the man. Tell him about the Gatewatch. Warn him about Ravnica’s dangers. Establish some sort of alliance, hopefully a friendship, so that the network of planeswalkers expanded. Gideon wasn’t sure he was going to be able to do that. There had been something supernatural about the effect he had had on Gideon. What if the man was malicious, and used it against him? He thought of going to Jace for a stronger mental shield, but he thought better of it. Something about the effect made Gideon think it wasn’t mental, but perhaps emotional, and no mind mage would protect him. He then realised, with a bit of a start, that the Gatewatch didn’t have anybody specialised against magic that manipulated emotions. If anything, it was Gideon himself who had more than once dispelled fear in others with inspiring words. Tightening his jaw, the hieromancer rose to his feet. At the very least, he’d figure out where the man was staying.

Gideon readjusted the bulge in his pants, still half-hard, then jumped to another rooftop. The man was indeed heading to Gavarash Street, and was likely staying at one of its inns. Gideon used his sural to grab at one of the outcroppings of a building nearby and then simply swung towards it like dead weight. There was a small flare of golden light across his skin and the impact on the brick was harmless. It wasn’t graceful, but it got the job done.

 _The Scabbard, interesting name for an inn._ Gideon studied the guests that came and went. Soldier types. _Right, scabbard, where you sheathe your sword while you’re not using it. Clever name for a warrior’s inn._ He stared at the inn door. If he went in and was bewitched, it’d spell all sorts of bad news for the Gatewatch. If he went back to Jace, he could lose the planeswalker. Hell, bringing Jace back with him might just ruin everything. Gideon admired the mind mage, but his social skills were abysmal. The hieromancer’s eyes narrowed. He could blend in. He looked the part of a Boros patron. Approaching the planeswalker and having a private conversation with him, on the other hand, would be practically impossible. If he had that effect on everyone he came across, he’d be constantly surrounded by an adoring crowd.

 _Maybe that’s what I need,_ Gideon thought. _A way to watch him while he’s distracted. See if I can learn more about his… influence._

He entered the inn with his head down. He could hear laughter from the common room to the right. There was a desk next to some stairs, a pair of big double doors to the right and a regular door behind the desk. At the desk, there was a grizzled old man that seemed distracted, fidgeting in his seat and glancing at the double doors. Renting a room was easy, the old man was barely paying attention. When he slipped into the common room, Gideon saw the planeswalker again and his heart skipped a beat. He was by the fireplace, the flames casting a bronze sheen on his dark tan skin. He was telling a story, the entire room was enraptured. He made a gesture with both hands, slicing something horizontally, the crowd cheered as if on cue. Gideon had intended to slip towards a dark corner and watch from a distance, but instead he froze on the spot. The man’s voice was deep and melodic, like a singer’s, but with a raspiness that sent a shiver down Gideon’s back whenever it dipped to a low tone.

The man’s eyes had been on the audience the entire time, but as the story approached its climax, he looked up and made direct eye contact with Gideon. To the hieromancer, it was like staring into the sun. The overpowering want he had felt on the rooftop surged back like a crashing wave, and he struggled to maintain his composure. He couldn’t give himself away. It was hard to find a reason not to drop to his knees, but Gideon clung to his sense of duty. He was on a mission.

Breaking away from those warm brown eyes was far harder than Gideon expected. He tried to remember the eldrazi. He unearthed the horror he had been trying to bury since Zendikar. The memories sobered him, grounded him, dampened his spirit with loss. He looked away, face hot, breath quickened. He had to find a dark corner to disappear into. He looked around; there was a table by the window. It wasn’t great, but it was the only place without an Izzet magelamp nearby. Gideon sunk into the relative penumbra and tried to avoid looking at the planeswalker. It was like trying not to look at the sun, he could still feel exactly where the man was by the warmth Gideon felt on his skin.

He stared pointedly through the window, which was fogged by the heat inside the common room, so he could only see vague shapes and lights on the other side. Gideon couldn’t even pay attention to the story the man was telling, his voice was like a calloused hand caressing him, it was distracting to the extreme. He tried harder. Something about an axe? And fighting… soldiers? Gideon listened intently. After a few minutes, he realised that removing the man’s alluring voice from the equation revealed his story to be terribly dull.

When the planeswalker finished, the crowd erupted in cheers, raising their mugs to him in celebration. Gideon chanced a glance and saw the man effortlessly navigating his audience with a cheeky smile here and a chuckle there. Gideon had assumed the crowd would be constantly around him; he hadn’t expected the planeswalker to ditch his audience so quickly. The hieromancer looked away again, trying to avoid drawing attention to himself. Instead, he trained his ear. The man had a peculiar accent, one that was familiar to him, but he couldn’t place the plane. It was a throaty accent he hadn’t heard in many years. Not Theros, but close. Bant? No, he didn’t look like a Bantian at all…

Before Gideon could continue his remembrance, he heard a chair sliding in front of him. He turned his head abruptly and ended up staring at the man he had been following, casually sitting across the table from him. The sight, up close, left him breathless. The first thing that hit him was the scent. The man smelled of leather, steel and masculine musk, but it wasn’t overpowering. It was a subtle presence around him, a scent that reinforced his image of a rugged warrior. His deep brown eyes were glinting with interest as he studied the hieromancer.

“Good evening,” the planeswalker greeted him slowly, giving Gideon time to process the situation. “My name is Victor.” The man’s smile was disarming.

Gideon opened his mouth to reply, but his mind blanked. He had forgotten how to string words together. It was like being drunk, only his vision and equilibrium were perfectly fine. “I…” he said, then blinked rapidly to dispel the fog in his mind. He smiled back. “Gideon. Gideon Jura.” He made a motion to offer his hand, but thought better of it. Greeting customs changed in every plane and he needed to navigate this meeting carefully.

“Gideon,” the man said, savouring the word like wine. “Not from around here, are you?”

The hieromancer paused. Should he breach the topic? In public? There could always be Dimir agents nearby. Or overeager Izzet mages vying for a dragon’s approval. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Though you might want to keep a low profile,” he added cautiously. “This is a dangerous city. There are people who’d be interested in where you’re from and what you can do.”

Victor leaned back on his chair and studied Gideon with detached amusement. “I can take care of myself in a fight,” he replied, but there was no real emotion behind it. Gideon’s eyes narrowed. _A test._

“I’m sure you can,” he replied with a conciliatory smile. “But it doesn’t hurt to be safe.” He paused, thinking carefully on how to bring up the next part of the conversation. “I have some friends, people you should meet. We look after each other. We help you out, you let us know if you see anything interesting while you’re… travelling.”

Victor tilted his head to the side, though Gideon couldn’t tell if he was contemplating the offer or trying to figure him out. Probably both. After a long moment, he shrugged, his demeanour relaxing minutely. “Sure, sounds good.” Victor turned towards the barmaid and gestured at her. “Let me buy you a drink.”

Gideon blinked, confused. That was a sudden change of mood. Still, he had got what he wanted, hadn’t he? And getting to know the mysterious planeswalker better would definitely help. Gideon was intensely curious about Victor’s magic; he could still feel the pull in the back of his mind, like an invisible force willing him closer.

The barmaid approached them, never taking her eyes off Victor. “I’ll have an ale,” Gideon said, going for the neutral choice.

“Give me your strongest firewater!” Victor exclaimed theatrically, making the barmaid gasp in awe. Gideon was a tad moved by the performance at first, but then the feeling dissolved, leaving a weird emptiness behind.

When the two of them were alone once more, Gideon looked at him and opened his mouth to speak, but Victor licked his upper lip and Gideon lost his train of thought. The sheen of saliva on it made it look unnaturally appealing; he noticed a tiny scar on it, like a cut long healed. The hieromancer shook his head, determined. “Can you,” Gideon started, gesturing vaguely at the air around Victor, “stop that?” Gideon tried to keep all harshness off his tone, instead making it sound curious and interested. He even smiled, genuinely, just in case.

Victor’s confident demeanour melted in the span of a few seconds. He seemed, at last, like a real person, and not a epic character given physical form. He looked embarrassed, his cheeks even reddening slightly. “I…” he started awkwardly. “Uh,” he uttered, his calloused hands gesturing meaninglessly. “Wish I knew how.”

Gideon blinked, stunned. “What,” he said flatly.

Victor smiled awkwardly. “I’ve always had a talent for inspiring people to follow me, and then…” he trailed off. He gave Gideon an apologetic look and shrugged. “When I was able to… travel, everything I could do before became… more. Better.”

Gideon nodded. It hadn’t happened to him, but he’d heard it happen to others. “Have you tried meditation?” Victor gave him a skeptical look. “Clearing your mind, trying to be as calm and focused as possible.”

Victor laughed, it was a deep rumble that forced Gideon to shake his head to clear the fog again. “I don’t think I’m capable of that,” the warrior replied with amusement. “It’s like a fire within me.”

Gideon thought of Chandra. He found himself examining Victor in a different light. Yes, Chandra wasn’t good at meditation or inner calm. But she could find focus. She could tame her fire. “One of my friends is like that,” he said gently, “It’s hard, but she can control it. Try different things, something’s bound to work.”

Victor frowned. He look furtively to the side and caught sight of the barmaid coming back with their drinks, then forced his face to relax. When she got to their table, he sent her off with a dazzling smile and she didn’t look disappointed at all. Gideon was mildly impressed at the ease with which Victor handled social situations. Both men drank in silence for a moment. Victor frowned again. “I’ve never _wanted_ it to stop. It’s hard to figure out how to rein it back in.”

Gideon nodded sympathetically. “I know. Just… try to feel it.”

Victor sighed, but closed his eyes and concentrated. Gideon knew what it felt like to try and find something that had always been there with you. It was like trying to become aware of one’s own breathing or heartbeat. He sat silently, sipping the ale slowly. He’d had better, but it wasn’t bad. Definitely acceptable. Ravnican food and drink always had a certain acrid aftertaste. Gideon didn’t want to think about the Golgari rot farms, but… 

“Is it better?” Victor asked after a while. Gideon looked at him and tried to relax. He had been a tense knot the entire time, muscles taut as though they’d help in keeping his feelings carefully under wraps. As his body relaxed minutely, he found nothing changing. The pull that had been at the back of his mind the entire time had disappeared at some point, and he hadn’t noticed. Gideon looked at Victor’s face carefully, taking in the handsome features, dark eyes, even the scars here and there. He still found it strongly attractive, but there wasn’t a fog in his mind, no overwhelming sense of want.

Gideon smiled at the man across the table. “Good job!” he said with genuine cheer. Victor’s sudden smile lacked the punch it had had before, but it was still capable of stirring desire in Gideon’s chest. The hieromancer tensed again, but for entirely different reasons. It was like that time Jace looked at him and his eyes looked _particularly_ blue, or when some of his Irregulars had got a bit too much to drink one night and started arguing over who was more handsome.

Victor, alarmingly, seemed to have noticed the tension. “Something wrong?” he asked, smile lingering wryly on his lips.

Gideon shook his head and forced some of his congeniality through. “Not at all.” He paused, mind racing for a change of subject. “I should probably tell you about my friends,” Gideon started amicably. “Jace is a mind mage. Smart,” he continued, then chuckled. “Sometimes too smart, but his heart’s in the right place. Chandra’s a pyromancer. You’d probably get along with her. Nissa is an elf. Also a druid. She’s…” he thought carefully about how to put his feelings into words in the most diplomatic way possible. “Introverted. She’s a kind soul, but gets along better with nature than people.” He paused again. Thought carefully for a moment, then sighed and gave up. “Liliana’s a necromancer. She saved our lives, but… still a necromancer.” He shrugged and gave Victor a dejected smile. “I know it sounds strange. If you’d told me a few years back I’d be fighting alongside a necromancer and a pyromancer, I would’ve never believed it. But it works.”

Victor had listened with a quietly amused half-grin. “Sounds like there are some interesting stories there,” he said coyly, swirling the remains of liquor on his mug.

Gideon tension increased slightly. He _really_ hoped Victor wasn’t flirting. Or was just generally flirtatious with everyone. “The problem with our stories,” Gideon said conversationally, “is that they’re too wild to be believed. Sometimes they sound unbelievable to me, and I was there.” He paused to gulp the last of his ale. “The ladies are off having adventures for the time being, but you should meet Jace at least. Most of us are staying with him. He lives by Udryal Square, it’s the tall building with the blue windows.”

Victor chuckled. “I wouldn’t mind meeting your friends,” he replied, toying with his mug. “How do you feel about them?” he asked Gideon, mischievousness glinting in his eyes.

Gideon was caught off-guard by the question. “I…” he stammered, then regained his composure. “I trust them. We work well as a team and they know it.”

“Even the necromancer?”

Gideon nodded decisively. “I trust she’ll do whatever’s best for her. So long as sticking with us is what’s best for her…”

Victor regarded him with amused interest for a moment. “You’re an interesting man, Gideon Jura.”

Gideon felt hot under the man’s gaze. The effort to keep himself composed and not make a fool of himself was taking its toll on him. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I won’t take up more of your time.” 

With that, Gideon rose to his feet and reached into his leather pants for some coin. He was about to put gold on the table when Victor covered his hand with his own. Victor’s skin was warm and rough, his grip firm but not harsh. Gideon froze, it had been a very long time since anyone had touched him like that. He kept his eyes downcast, on the table. He might give himself away otherwise.

“No, please. I said I’d buy you a drink,” Victor reminded him gently. It was a surprising change from the theatrics he had displayed that evening. Gideon noticed Victor’s hand was smaller than his, but no less strong. “I have enjoyed your company tonight. Let me be generous.”

Gideon’s heart was thundering again, that time it wasn’t a supernatural effect. He opened his mouth, not entirely trusting himself to sound unaffected. “All right,” he uttered, a tad softer than he would’ve liked, as he slowly withdrew his hand. Victor’s warmth lingered on his skin after their hands parted. “Thank you.” Gideon’s eyes were still on the table.

Victor chuckled. “No, Gideon, thank you. I was beginning to worry Ravnica had nothing truly interesting to offer.”

Gideon looked at Victor at last, the warrior was leaning back on his chair like a great cat after a hunt. “Glad to be of service.”

Gideon was beginning to walk away when he heard Victor’s voice. “You know, you never told me what you and your friends do.”

This time, it was Gideon’s time to grin confidently, as he turned his head over his shoulder. “We keep watch.”


	2. Longing For Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gideon and Victor's friendship deepens. Jace is suspicious.

Jace was staring at Gideon as though he was a doppelganger, with a mixture of both incredulity and distrust. Gideon was unamused. _If you’re reading my mind right now, I’m disappointed in you. We had a talk about boundaries._

“This is important,” Jace began, “You just told me you were compromised by another planeswalker.” Gideon fixed Jace a gaze full of stern disappointment. Jace sighed loudly. “Fine. No more telepathy. Not that I could dig any further without exerting myself, you’ve been fortifying that mental shield pretty well.”

Gideon felt a surge of pride and his sternness ameliorated. “I’m not compromised.”

“That’s exactly what someone compromised would say,” Jace retorted.

Gideon arched an eyebrow. “And what a _non_ -compromised person would say.”

Jace began to pace. “It’s like that riddle, the one where one tells the truth and the other lies, how did that one go…?”

Gideon barely restrained the temptation to roll his eyes and sigh loudly at his friend. “How about you _trust_ me?” he suggested patiently. Jace stopped pacing and looked at Gideon as though he had suggested burning his entire library down. “What,” Gideon uttered flatly.

“See, this is why we need Liliana,” Jace muttered, shaking his head. “Sometimes I feel like she’s the only one here who understands when I talk about the dangers out there.”

Gideon’s facial expression betrayed nothing but sheer unamusement. “People would be a lot more willing to listen to you if you didn’t underestimate them.”

“But I’m _right_!” Jace exclaimed, as though the whole world had gone mad. “Listen, let me see things from your perspective, then I can judge whether or not you’re compromised.”

“That is not going to happen,” Gideon said calmly but firmly. There was absolutely no way he was sharing his emotions with Jace. Victor had stirred desires he had spent years burying, and he wasn’t about to share them with anyone. Much less with Jace, who’d likely use those emotions to discredit his judgement. “You and I are going to have a meal with Victor and you will judge for yourself.”

Jace looked utterly stunned. “You want to bring a person that you _know_ is capable of manipulating emotions into our _headquarters_? So that he can compromise us both while the others are gone?”

“You are a powerful mind mage. I’ve seen you counter magic far more powerful than this. _If_ he tries anything, you will be ready for it, and you will dispel it,” Gideon stated firmly.

“Just because you can defeat a foe doesn’t mean you must confront them if you don’t have to,” Jace countered. “There is value in subtlety and precaution.”

“He is a valuable ally and you know this. The _logical_ course of action is for you to meet him while prepared,” Gideon replied just as swiftly.

Jace glared at him. “Fine. I’ll clear time for lunch tomorrow with Lavinia.”

“Thank you,” Gideon said graciously. “I’ll let him know.”

“You’re going back to see him again?” Jace inquired carefully.

“How else is he going to find out we’re inviting him over for lunch tomorrow?”

Jace’s eyes narrowed, but said nothing. Gideon stood there for a moment as he watched Jace turn around and go back to his desk. He left the building feeling confused and vaguely paranoid. _Mind mages._

He found Victor at the same inn, in the common room, telling another grand story as the patrons ate lunch. The food looked a bit better than what Gideon would’ve expected for an inn of that calibre and he wondered if Victor’s presence hadn’t inspired the cooks to try harder. It seemed like the sort of effect he’d have on people. Gideon leaned on the doorframe to the common room and listened quietly to Victor’s tale. Apparently, he had single-handedly taken three other warriors out with nothing but his wits and his axe. Gideon tried to be charitable. Not everyone fought eldrazi by themselves. Not everyone was indestructible.

When Victor finished, he casually looked at Gideon, as if he’d known he hieromancer had been there all along, and gestured to join him at his table. As he sat in front of Victor once more, he found himself confident and in high spirits. The dreaded aura was gone, at least for the time being, and Victor felt like such an easy person to be around. Normally, Gideon would’ve refused to let Victor pay for his lunch after he’d bought him a drink the previous night, but it felt less important with Victor. He had a way of making Gideon feel like he was being kind and polite by allowing Victor to treat him. It was odd, but not unwelcome.

Gideon found himself smiling frequently as they talked, even laughing freely and clapping a hand on Victor’s shoulder every so often. After the horrors he had seen in the last few months, laughter felt strange in his chest, like a burbling wellspring that laid buried for too long. Victor agreed to the lunch appointment for the next day without hesitation, then invited Gideon to show him around Ravnica for the afternoon. Gideon felt a foreign enthusiasm at the idea and wondered if, even without the aura, Victor’s emotions simply radiated from him like heat. The man didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, but what other explanation could there be?

Gideon took Victor to a Gruul park first; it was better to walk under the falling leaves while it was still bright out. The hieromancer found it easy to talk about the city, to explain the guilds and what he had learnt about it from Jace. Victor was a good listener, chuckling at the right times and asking follow-up questions to keep Gideon from feeling like he was rambling. There was a moment where the mid-afternoon sun shone through the red-gold foliage and bathed Victor in a fiery glow, making his dark brown skin take on a coppery cast, and Gideon was struck breathless at the beauty. Victor’s hair was like woven fire, the sunlight glinted in his eyes like cinders in the night sky, and Gideon felt an oppressive fear at how much he wanted to kiss the man before him. Gideon’s face, flushed hot, turned away from the suntouched sight and turned towards the garden exit. With a muttered excuse, he hurried Victor along.

From there, the two went to a Boros practice range, where the two men could sit for a while on the grandstand seats and watch the soldiers practise. It was then that Victor had a chance to talk, commenting on the drills and combat maneuvers with interest, comparing them with the techniques he knew from his home and the ones he’d seen during his travels. Gideon listened and nodded, there were things he had seen himself as well, but a good amount of what Victor said was new to him. It was surprisingly interesting to talk about combat with a fellow warrior, Gideon realised halfway through the conversation. He hadn’t had anybody who understood the importance of not relying solely on magic, who agreed on the importance of staying in top physical shape, who could discern the crucial differences between a defensive stance and a withdrawing stance, or between a sabre and a scimitar.

When the practice drills were over and the sweaty, tired soldiers left for the baths to wash up and change, the two men carried on with their trip. Gideon took Victor to a Selesnya garden near Jace’s home, one that was enchanted to remain in eternal springtime regardless of the actual season. Gideon remembered when he had once wandered into it by accident after leaving Jace’s sanctum at dusk, and the sweet scent of the flowers that bloomed when the sun went down was fresh and thick in the air. As the sun cast an orange glow upon the garden, Gideon watched Victor inhale deeply and take in the beauty around him. The pleased look on the warrior’s face left Gideon’s chest brimming with pride.

“So,” Victor had asked as the two ducked into a secluded pathway in the garden, “what’s your story?”

Gideon chuckled and looked down, slightly embarrassed. “I’m just a hieromancer who travels a lot,” he answered humbly. At Victor’s silence, he looked up, only to see the man giving him an amused but disappointed look. “Heh,” he uttered, “I don’t like talking about myself that much.”

“But I find you interesting,” Victor said calmly, almost in a whisper. The raspiness in his voice sent a shiver down Gideon’s spine.

The hieromancer firmly avoided making eye contact. “I suppose what we did in Zendikar and Innistrad is worth telling, if only so that we can all remain vigilant in the future.”

Gideon’s retelling of the Gatewatch’s fight against the eldrazi lacked the emotional punch that Chandra or Nissa would’ve given it, and he was pretty sure he was getting some details wrong, but it was his story. He emphasised the sacrifice of the people, the bravery of the civilians who did what they could to help, he stressed how important it was that nobody gave up on hope. In the end, he finally turned to look at Victor, and found him awed. There was a brief flash of vindication in Gideon’s chest, as he felt the charming man had got his just desserts, if only for a moment.

“Gideon Jura,” Victor said his name like a prayer, “you are a hero worthy of a legend.”

Gideon’s entire being pulsed with fear and self-loathing, his memory flashing back to his youth in Theros and the death of the Irregulars. His Irregulars. “No,” Gideon said firmly, barely able to keep harshness off his tone. “Not a hero. Not a legend.”

Victor held his gaze for a moment, then nodded in understanding. “Not a hero, not a legend,” he repeated slowly. “A warrior, then.” Gideon nodded, equally slowly. “A warrior worthy of my admiration.”

Gideon hesitated. He had seen admiration in other people’s eyes before. In Zendikar, in Ravnica, even in Regatha and Bant. It had always made him feel sick in the stomach. _Don’t look at me like that. You don’t know who I am. Who I was. What I did._ But there was something… _aware_ about Victor’s dark brown eyes. It was as though he understood, intuited the truth, and admired him regardless. Instead of making him feel sick, it made him feel hopeful and mournful at once. Gideon nodded carefully. Victor smiled gently, as though towards a frightened animal. Gideon felt a stab of guilt. _Is that what he thinks I am? A wounded beast?_

“And before?” Victor asked casually.

The two men walked in silence for a while, as Gideon thought whether to respond or not, and if so, how far back to go. Victor did not make the silence awkward. Instead, he busied himself with the flowers, smelling them as they walked by, savouring each new scent like wine. Gideon felt torn between what he owed Victor and what he didn’t want to share with another soul.

“I was in Regatha,” Gideon said at last, gazed fixed on the floor as they walked. “I was part of the Order of Heliud, for a while. I met Chandra there. She challenged me, showed me the truth about the Order and the Purifying Fire. I followed her to Zendikar afterwards.”

There was a long moment of silence. Gideon chanced a glance at Victor, who seemed contemplative, his face neutral. Then, at last, he turned to Gideon, “I was born in Regatha,” Victor said, his face betraying no emotion. “My people were persecuted by the Order.”

Gideon’s spirits sank. “Oh, no.”

“My father was taken to the Purifying Fire. So was my mother. I killed the agents they sent for my brother. I made a blood oath that I would not lose another loved one to their tyranny,” Victor explained coolly. “We heard tales of the woman who challenged the Order and survived. We never knew her name, but she became a heroine to my people. The Firesoul, we called her. We likened her to a phoenix, reborn from her ashes when her enemies thought her dead.”

“She survived the Purifying Fire,” Gideon uttered softly. “It found her pure and empowered her to smite the Order for its sins.”

“Good,” Victor said harshly. There was a tense pause. “You said the Firesoul made you see the truth about the Order. Did you see what they had done to us? Or was it just what they did to her?”

“I was told they brought criminals, the wicked. I was rarely sent out. When I came to them, I made a deal. I would conduct some missions on their behalf if they let me study the Purifying Fire. I didn’t leave the temple much.”

Victor remained silent. “What do you feel now? About the people they killed?” he asked finally, then turned abruptly at Gideon. “Do not lie.”

“I…” Gideon began, hesitantly. “I wanted to believe I was doing good,” he confessed. “I wanted to atone. I didn’t want… I _don’t_ want to believe that I was helping them do evil, that I was an accomplice in tyranny.” Gideon’s voice was raw with emotion. His chest felt like a gaping wound, a stab of pain in every heartbeat.

Victor’s expression softened into pity. “They used you. I wish I could blame you. It’d make things easier,” he said, his voice still bitter. “But you are not them and they are not you. The Firesoul saved you, just like she saved my people.”

Gideon swallowed thickly. The forgiveness, though unstated, felt undeserved. They reached a point where their path bifurcated to go around a great willow. Its leaves were pale blue and glowed in the dark, casting an enchanted light upon the garden. “Your brother,” Gideon said, “does he live?”

“Yes,” Victor answered with some difficulty. “I wanted him to grow into a man of his own. That’s why I left. I was… a shadow over him. Infinite, suffocating. I was killing him.”

Gideon nodded. “It must have been hard to leave.”

“I left everything behind.” Victor paused, turning his back on Gideon. He thumbed a glowing willow leaf. “You’re the first person I’ve befriended in my travels.”

Gideon’s hand extended hesitantly, then rested on Victor’s shoulder. “You honour me,” the hieromancer told him quietly.

Victor stood still for a moment, then turned around. Gideon quickly withdrew his hand. There was a hint of a smile on the warrior’s face. “Thank you for your honesty. And your company today.”

Gideon couldn’t help but echo the ghost of a smile. “Thank you for your understanding.”

The two men reached the other end of the garden. “Udryal Square is across the street. See that tall building over there? That’s Jace’s place.”

Victor nodded. “I think I know how the way now.”

Gideon stood in the corner, watching Victor walk back the way they had both came. When the man disappeared behind a corner, the hieromancer sighed heavily and walked back to Jace’s sanctum. He was so distracted with his thoughts he didn’t notice Jace waiting for him at the library. Gideon felt scrutinised and stopped to look around. There was Jace, blue eyes brimming with distrust.

“Yes?” Gideon asked, perplexed.

“There’s something about you lately.”

Gideon gave Jace a look that was equal parts appraisal and disbelief. Then, he shook his head in resignation and resumed his walk to his bedroom. “Goodnight, Jace.”

Jace did not reply.


	3. Breathing, Still

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lunch goes about as well as could be expected.

Gideon’s dreams after Zendikar and Innistrad had been nightmares. Erebos, demanding Gideon to confess his guilt. Friends dying. Mutated creatures splitting into bones and tendrils and fractal flesh. In the distance, Emrakul, always Emrakul. They had all had those dreams. He knew Jace and Tamiyo had ways to master their own minds, to lock the horrors away or even banish them from memory. Liliana was always unperturbed; whether she had faced worse or was simply an expert at concealing weakness was anybody’s guess. Nissa had the land, nature itself, to ground her dreams in stillness. Chandra had bought draughts that promised a sleep without nightmares. Gideon had endured. Every night before bed, he’d remember both the fallen and the survivors, and use them to ground his dreams the way Nissa used the land. It didn’t use to work at first, but as time went by, the dreamless nights came to him more often, his body and mind recovering in a way he had not allowed them to for a long time.

Since he’d met Victor, Gideon’s dreams had been blurry, indistinct, a dissipating mist that lifted at dawn, leaving behind confusion and unnameable nostalgia. He had forced himself not to dwell on the handsome man any more than he had to. Gideon’s self-control was tough as steel, but he had denied himself the comfort of another man for a very long time and his desire sometimes felt strong enough to bend steel.

Gideon made a ritual of his morning, drawing out the time before noon. A solitary breakfast, his daily exercise routine, a thorough bath, a bit more attention than usual to his choice of attire, and significant time spent on his hair ( _Loose? Completely tied? Half and half?_ ). By the time he was ready, it was far past mid-morning, the sun lazily inching towards its zenith. Without much else to do, he visited the kitchens.

Gideon had made a point to befriend Jace’s staff, to help them in their tasks and treat them kindly, as equals. Most of them were Rakdos or gateless, people who were content to escape the city’s violence by working for an eccentric mind mage, people who scrubbed blood from clothes without a word and were summarily “mindsculpted” if they stumbled upon one of the Gatewatch’s countless secrets. It was hard for Gideon to not have a visceral revulsion for Jace’s casual disregard for the sanctity of the mind or the autonomy of others, but he understood that their collective secrets imperilled any who learnt them, and that the deletion of memories was, unsavoury as it may feel, a way to protect the innocent from harm.

“Cara,” Gideon greeted the head cook warmly, the scent of vegetables simmering in oil wafting from the pans to greet him back, “it smells delicious already.”

The elderly human woman smiled at him as though he was her own grandson. “Gideon! You’re looking more handsome than usual today!” He couldn’t help but smile back. “We were told you and the Master are entertaining a guest today. I wasn’t sure what to serve, so I’m making a bit of everything,” she explained, gesturing at the kitchen around her. The stone oven was already glowing orange, likely braising some type of meat. Thrisk, Cara’s quiet goblin assistant, was carefully slicing vegetables and fruits on the central table. Cara herself had flour and tiny bits of dry dough on her hands.

“Oh,” Gideon chuckled, “he’s been staying at a Gavarash inn. I think he’ll eat just about anything and like it.”

“The poor man,” Cara shook her head, “watered ale, boiled meat and mashed potatoes for every meal, I’m sure.” She turned to the goblin, “We’ll show him some good cooking, won’t we, Thrisk?”

The goblin lifted his gaze from the carrot he was slicing. His eyes were big and watery, they reminded Gideon of a street urchin. The goblin nodded slowly, then looked at both humans one at a time, as if seeking permission, and returned to his task.

“Can I help you with something around here, Cara?” Gideon offered nonchalantly.

“And ruin the pretty picture you’re painting?” she old woman asked, almost indignant. “It would be a crime!”

Gideon laughed awkwardly, the compliment unwelcome. “I don’t really have anything else to do. Don’t you need to carry something heavy? A sack of flour? Maybe you need something from the pantry’s top shelf?” he offered once more.

Eyes still focused on slicing, Thrisk shook his head. Cara tsked loudly. “You already helped plenty yesterday! Now sit down by the oven, let me make you some tea,” she said firmly, hefting a heavy iron kettle onto a steel grate atop the stone oven. While whatever was inside it was cooking, the oven’s radiating heat was collected by the metal and could be used to cook other meals atop it. A clever invention Gideon had seen in more than one plane. “We have some biscuits from yesterday, don’t we, Thrisk?”

The goblin stopped cutting, slowly slinked towards the pantry, and then returned with a ceramic pot. He had looked down at the floor the entire time. After handing over the pot to Cara, he returned to his vegetables.

“There we go,” she said as she gently retrieved the pot from her assistant. She fetched a plate from a cupboard and poured far too many biscuits on it. “Now, warriors need to eat well to keep their strength!” she added, nudging the plate towards Gideon. Gideon took a biscuit to please her and nibbled on it. It was sweet, a perfectly acceptable blend of vanilla and honey. Ravnicans weren’t terribly fond of spices, Gideon had noticed, but there was a certain simplicity to their cooking he could appreciate. “I told you about my Miris, didn’t I?” the woman continued, adding a spoonful of herbs to a mug as she patiently waited by the oven. “She was as strong as you, and by the Guildpact, just as tall. The Boros loved her the moment they saw her! And it was because I would always make sure to feed her well. It wasn’t always easy, oh no, but you make do, even if you’re gateless.”

Gideon nodded attentively, he had heard the story before, but he was more than happy letting the elderly cook relive her memories. She had told him before how she’d lost her daughter, son in law and granddaughter to the violence between the guilds. She had nothing and nobody, and Gideon felt endless sympathy towards her. It had been people like her that had made Gideon leave the Boros to defend the gateless. Someone had to look after the innocent, the disenfranchised, the victims of the guilds’ endless struggles.

“Here you go, Gideon,” Cara said, handing him over a mug of hot tea. The hieromancer thanked her and continued listening. She was retelling the story of how her daughter had met her husband, a Golgari farmer who had been smitten instantly by her and would make all sorts of outlandish excuses to see her. And then their daughter, a rebellious child who loved the Rakdos circus and adopted the pierced, inked look of the guild in her teenage years. Gideon liked that she dwelled on their lives and not on their deaths. She kept them alive in her memory, flickering lights of joy and hope to keep the darkness at bay.

Cara checked the different dishes she was preparing while she talked, adding a pinch of spice here and sprinkling dry herbs there, working dough with her worn, calloused hands, the hands of a woman who had laboured her entire life. Thrisk never spoke. Gideon knew the goblin was a Rakdos worker, and had likely witnessed or suffered something that had snuffed out the fire that was so common in goblins. He possessed a deliberateness about his movements that Gideon had never seen in a race known for swiftness and reckless abandon. Thrisk moved about the kitchen with the ease of an expert, his carefulness never preventing him from decisive action. Gideon often wondered if Jace was even aware of who his servants were, of their life stories, their dreams and baggage. Probably not.

Time flew by for Gideon, in the warm kitchen, trying to repay kindness with kindness, complimenting the cooks’ hard work and ability. When Gideon heard the magically augmented clang of Jace’s door knocker as it echoed across the hallways, he looked around, startled. _Already?!_

With hasty goodbyes, Gideon hurried upstairs to the ground floor, nervously checking his appearance on the ornate mirrors in Jace’s main hall. He collected himself, took a deep breath, and put on his friendliest smile. When he opened the door, he noticed he hadn’t been the only one to dress up for the occasion. The previous day, Victor had been dressed neck to toe in hunter’s clothes, the almost patchwork collection of fur and leather that characterised travellers and woodsmen. Since it was impossible to planeswalk with more than what one carried on one’s person, it was rare for planeswalkers to have more than one outfit. Victor had either found a way around it or had visited a tailor’s shop at some point.

Victor was wearing dark leather trousers that hugged his powerful legs. Presumably, they would also perfectly hug his bulge, which was why he was wearing a tasteful black loincloth on top. Gideon thanked that decision, as his brain struggled to process what a nightmare the lunch would’ve been if Victor was wearing form-fitting pants that perfectly delineated his goods. On his torso, Victor wore a fashionable brown vest made of some shiny tough fabric Gideon didn’t recognise, but had seen a few times in Ravnica. The cut of the vest was rather avant-garde, with an outrageous V-neck that showcased Victor’s ridiculous abs, and only buttoned at waist height. The vest had a collar that followed the V-neck and further drew the eye towards Victor’s enviable physique. They framed the dip between Victor’s well-developed pecs and further guided the eye down one of the most perfect abdomens Gideon had ever laid eyes on.

It took Gideon a good long time to lift his gaze up and look at Victor’s face, notice the trimmed facial hair, the gleaming mane of brown hair, and the dark, captivating eyes that looked at Gideon with satisfaction and interest. It was then that Gideon realised he’d been staring. Inwardly, he panicked. Slightly. He attempted to school his face. Had he given too much away?

“Victor!” Gideon said with forced cheer. “So glad you came.”

If Victor had noticed Gideon’s awed staring, he said nothing, which allowed the hieromancer to appreciate the lack of emotional magic in the air. He had forgotten to warn Victor to rein in the aura of awe, but it seemed it the thought had been unnecessary.

“You live here?” Victor asked, casting an appreciative gaze across the main hall and its elegant architecture.

“As a guest,” Gideon replied smoothly, nervousness easing into confidence once more. “Along with most of the Gatewatch.”

At that point, two sets of steps began clattering down the stone staircase in the main hall. Jace was escorting Lavinia out, the Azorius guildmage carrying a stack of scrolls in her arms, and they were taking their good time descending the three floors that separated Jace’s sanctum from the main hall. Gideon and Victor waited in silence. It felt awkward to interrupt the two talking, perhaps casually eavesdropping was slightly less so.

“... remember that we need to reinforce our work with the Gruul. Ratifying their authority over the parks and wilds of Ravnica has ruffled some feathers with Selesnya and Simic, but Gruul destructiveness is at an all time low. This is a clear sign of success, which means we must improve on it,” Lavinia stated sternly.

“I’m aware. However, the Rakdos and the Boros are still killing each other on the streets by the Duskborough District, and we have literally no idea what the Dimir or the Golgari are plotting,” Jace retorted. Gideon thought he heard a tinge of fear in Jace’s voice.

Their steps stopped somewhere along the second floor.

“Really? The Golgari? That’s the guild that worries you?” Lavinia inquired with understated disapproval.

“You know Vraska has it out for me,” Jace replied defensively. “I still have contacts in the Izzet League. She’s… involved in something strange. The kind of strange that Izzet’s brilliant minds can’t explain.” Gideon noticed the way he tiptoed around the issue of planeswalkers with Lavinia. So she wasn’t in the know yet.

There was a long silence, then the steps resumed their descent.

“I’ll see what I can find out through the Orzhov. Nobody tells the Azorius anything, but we too have strings we can pull. If there’s anything worth knowing in this city, the Dimir know it and the Orzhov have a contract with it,” Lavinia said at last. Gideon couldn’t help but grimace at the disdain and cynicism in her voice. Her still youthful appearance would never show how jaded she had become, but her voice most certainly did.

“Sounds logical,” Jace replied, satisfied. “Any news on the healthcare reform?”

The steps were getting closer, they were descending the final steps of the staircase, and so involved in their conversation they were that they completely failed to notice Gideon and Victor standing awkwardly next to the front door.

“Still gridlocked. The gateless want it, Rakdos, Golgari and Gruul want it, Selesnya is fully supporting it, most of Simic seems willing to change their direction and refocus their guild towards it; but Orzhov, some of Boros and the conservative bloc in the Senate are still opposing it, and the rest of the guilds don’t care. I pushed it during yesterday’s session and Tarjen filibustered until the time was up. He just read _The Complete Annals of Azor I, Volume IX_ out loud for three and a half hours,” Lavinia explained with utter resignation.

Jace shook his head. “It’s like they _want_ the poor to die.”

“Of course they do, Guildpact,” Lavinia replied casually. “It’d make things simpler for them. Which is why I’m going to bring it up again next session. And if they keep filibustering, I’m going to keep bringing it up until something gives.” There was a sharp, steely smile on the woman’s face. “And trust me, Guildpact, it shall not be me.”

Jace regarded Lavinia with a touch of disgusted fascination, the kind one might reserve for some murderous contraption, but he nodded at her. He believed her, and so did Gideon. He was familiar with lawmages, admired their dedication. It was rare to find a mage with more conviction than someone who manifested Law into a physical thing. The mere callousness of the wealthy seemed flimsy in comparison. He silently rooted for her.

Jace and Lavinia made it to the main hall and finally looked towards the door. Gideon was inwardly pleased at their reactions, hoping that their stunned faces made his own seem more normal. Lavinia’s pile of scrolls wavered in her arms, and Gideon thought for a moment Victor actually had the power to evoke some sort of emotion in the most austere and driven woman in Ravnica. But then she collected herself and reinforced her grip on the scrolls, Gideon oddly relieved to find that there were limits to Victor’s natural charm and looks. Perhaps she would’ve been impervious even to his magic. Azorius magic protected both the body and the mind, and perhaps even encased the heart in the cold grip of the Law.

Jace, on the other hand, was absolutely awful at concealing his emotions, gawking open-mouthed at Victor, bright blue eyes roving across the warrior’s form from head to toe. Gideon was actually startled to see such a strong reaction, he suspected Jace and Liliana had most definitely been involved at some point in the past and was fairly certain something lingered still. And yet, Jace was definitely the poster boy for not judging books by their cover. His antisocial behaviour, his belts and cloak and terrible fashion sense, they all belied one of the most powerful telepaths in the multiverse.

Gideon spared Jace more embarrassment, “Jace, Lavinia, this is Victor.”

Victor bowed his head to them, a sly smile never leaving his face. “A pleasure,” he said in a demure, low tone that did absolutely nothing to conceal his smugness, at least to Gideon.

Lavinia looked at Gideon, as though she was seeing him for the first time, then at Victor, then back to Jace. “I’ve said before you keep interesting company, Guildpact,” she uttered slowly. “It has been an understatement before now. Good afternoon.” And with the decisiveness of an automaton, she opened the front door and left.

Jace blinked a few times, trying to process the situation. He raised his hand, it began glowing blue. Gideon and Victor stared warily. Jace’s eyes echoed the glow. Victor took a cautious step back. “He’s not performing any magic that I can detect,” Jace said at last. “Not even an illusion,” he added, staring at Victor with amazement.

Victor chuckled. “Oh, I assure you, what you’re seeing is completely real. Battle scars and all,” he replied proudly, hands on his hips and puffing his chest out. Gideon heard the vest’s fabric strain slightly.

Jace blinked again, slowly composing himself. “Clearly. Victor, then. The dining room is this way.”

The three men made their way to the small but elegant dining room, the table barely able to sit more than eight people at once, but it was plenty spacious for Jace’s solitary ways. The plates had already been set, Jace sat at the head and gestured the other two to sit at his sides. Victor didn’t seem to have a single inkling of proper Ravnican etiquette; Gideon noticed Jace’s silent disapproval at Victor’s obvious cluelessness when it came to the multitude of forks and knives and glasses. Gideon had once been in that position, but having to be the Gatewatch’s friendly face had taught him a lot about etiquette and diplomacy.

“While we wait, tell us about yourself, Victor,” Jace said in what Gideon was sure was intending to be a conversational tone, but ended up coming off as clinical. Jace was slipping into a familiar role, that of a detached observer, and Gideon tried very hard to avoid groaning in frustration.

Victor graciously told Jace about Regatha, smoothly summing up his life as a warrior for a nomadic tribe of mountain-dwelling humans. Gideon noticed he avoided mentioning the Order, or the Firesoul, and wondered whether he owed to keep Jace in the loop about it. The hieromancer swiftly decided he’d rather have that conversation in private.

“Gideon tells me you’re an emotional mage,” Jace continued, and Gideon couldn’t help but grimace at the interrogating tone. _If you’re reading my mind right now, Jace, you really need to be friendlier. You sound like a Boros enforcer._

Victor nodded, the charming smile cooling into simple politeness. “Yes,” he replied, “and you’re a mind mage, right?”

“I am,” Jace retorted tersely. “And Gideon is a hieromancer.”

Gideon seized the chance to intervene, “Regardless of whatever magic or technique we master, there’s plenty of common ground to be found,” he said, conciliatory. “I’ve told Victor about the Eldrazi, about the oath we took.” Victor nodded. “Allies are important. We need eyes and ears to let us know about the dangers of the multiverse.”

“You must keep your status as a planeswalker a secret,” Jace interjected bluntly. “There are forces in this very city who’d be delighted to tear you apart from the inside out just to see what makes you tick. And who’d easily pry the knowledge of the Gatewatch from your mind.”

“Gideon implied something along those lines,” Victor demurred. “And I will tell you what I told him: I can take of myself in a fight.”

Jace scoffed. Actually scoffed, out loud. Gideon frowned, he had half a mind to call him out on his rudeness in front of Victor. _I really hope you’re hearing this so I can let you know how disappointed I am._

“You and Gideon may be strong and skilled in combat,” Jace said dismissively, “and you may wield magic that is subtler than most—which, as a mind mage, I appreciate—but there are creatures that vastly outstrip your power without even being able to planeswalk at all. Niv-Mizzet is the head of the Izzet League, he’s a dragon whose brilliance is only rivaled by his temperament.” Jace looked at Victor with utter seriousness. “And he suspects, he might even know, that planeswalkers exist. It’s only thanks to our efforts that we all remain hidden.”

Victor inclined his head. “I shall respect this dragon,” he conceded graciously.

Jace nodded to himself, satisfied. Gideon glared at him with barely concealed exasperation before turning to Victor. “Thank you, I’m glad we can trust you.” Victor’s smiled turned genuine and Gideon felt inexplicably warm.

The food arrived. Gideon successfully dismantled the tension at the table, guiding the conversation towards more casual topics, satisfying Victor’s curiosity about Ravnica and Jace’s about Regatha. Jace was guarded throughout the lunch, but Gideon managed to keep the atmosphere friendly.

When Victor left and Jace and Gideon stood alone in the main hall, Jace relaxed visibly. “He didn’t try anything,”

Gideon nodded, “I told you, didn’t I? I have a good feeling about him, Jace. You found Tamiyo in Innistrad and she helped us. I think Victor can help us too.”

“That was different, I…” Jace began, then stopped. He had read Tamiyo’s journal long before he found her. He had retraced her footsteps, followed her leads, drank from the madness that had engulfed the entire plane. How could he blame Gideon for being compromised when he’d allowed himself to be devoured by a mystery? “Hm. Yes, I think I see what you mean,” Jace finally said after some consideration. “There’s something about him that I can’t quite put my finger on, but I don’t think he’s dangerous.”

“We all have secrets, Jace. And most of them are not mysteries for you to chase,” Gideon chastised him gently.

“The problem, Gideon,” Jace explained as he headed upstairs once more, his voice filled with naturality, “is that I can’t tell which ones are.”


	4. Dreaming of Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gideon finally realises why he finds Victor so attractive, stirring buried memories and dreams of happier times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for taking so long to update this. The last couple months have been very busy and kinda rough. Anyway, here's some smut at last.

Gideon’s dreams had taken on a sharpness to them lately. There were precise sensations, rather than the nebulous, almost-forgotten impressions he was used to. After Victor left, Gideon went out to pursue another lead on Vraska and then returned to Jace’s home exhausted, heading straight to bed after dinner. Sleep came over him instantly, the transition between wakefulness and slumber completely seamless.

So seamless, in fact, that he dreamt he was still in bed. His room had taken on a lopsided, blurred quality, silver-white moonlight casting a harsh glare on his bed, curtains fluttering endlessly on a breeze he couldn’t feel. He stared vacantly at the white sky outside, not the nyx of Theros, not the Ravnican glow of the city, but the empty whiteness of Zendikar’s dead sky after the Eldrazi.

A wisp of smoke coiled into the room through the open window. It coruscated its way to the corner of his bed and then coalesced into the shape of a man. Gideon knew the stories, had heard of planes where demons were not hulking brutes but handsome, tempting incubi. The stories had been on his mind lately, as well as those of inhumanly beautiful vampires seducing their prey by moonlight. Gideon had never thought of himself as prey, not with his invulnerability. It was a foreign, frightening sensation, to realise no man was without weakness.

The handsome man sitting on his bed turned towards him, long black hair shifting aside to reveal dark features that were all too familiar to him.

“Victor,” Gideon whispered, but the voice seemed to come from all around him, rather than from his own mouth.

Victor laid down on the bed at Gideon’s feet, stretching like a cat. The harsh moonlight made each of Victor’s bare muscles stand out in sharp relief. Gideon swallowed thickly. He was staring at temptation given physical form. He wanted it. He wanted it so badly it was physically hurting him, like an ache that pulsed through his body with every heartbeat.

“All you have to do is ask,” Victor said coyly, his smile glinting like ice.

Gideon bit his lower lip, hands curled into fists. If nobody knew, if it didn’t interfere with his duties, he could afford to indulge, right? If it kept his mind from being distracted, it would actually be a good thing, no?

“Take me,” Gideon breathed out.

Victor sat up, then turned to face Gideon and slowly inched towards him on his hands and knees. Gideon laid down as Victor climbed over him, he could feel the other man’s heat radiating through the inch of air separating them. The bed covers were gone, Gideon’s skin was exposed and feverish. Victor touched him, just the tip of a finger on Gideon’s calf, and it was enough to make him shudder. He had _needed_ it so badly. The fingertip moved higher up his leg, over the loose shorts he wore to sleep. The shorts he was tenting rather prominently. Victor’s finger moved higher, up his side, tracing the contours of Gideon’s abdominal muscles and then sliding between his pectorals, only to end on his chin, tilting it upwards for a kiss. Gideon closed his eyes and felt his reservations crumbling little by little.

Victor’s lips felt familiar. There was a sense of urgency in the kiss, it was something he’d definitely experienced before. It helped Gideon remember how kisses were supposed to go, but the eerie familiarity was too unsettling. He opened his eyes. The man kissing him wasn’t Victor.

Drasus.

It was then that it hit Gideon why Victor’s attractiveness was so much harder to resist than other men’s. The same smooth, dark brown skin. The same long dark hair. The same impish brown eyes. There were differences, of course. Drasus had his hair in thin dreadlocks, while Victor wore it straight and loose. Victor had an air of deliberate performance while Drasus was always transparent and genuine.

And yet, Victor had just enough of a superficial resemblance to make Gideon crave for something he had spent years burying.

Drasus leaned forward and kissed Gideon’s neck, just the way he used to. Gideon moaned unabashedly. Drasus knew exactly where to nibble, where to lick, to send waves of tingling pleasure across Gideon’s body.

“Drasus,” Gideon groaned. “Please,” he begged out loud.

“Hmm,” Drasus said devilishly, kissing his way up to Gideon’s ear. “What do you want me to do, Kytheon?”

_Kytheon._

_Kytheon Iora of Akros._

Gideon’s longing turned into a dull pain. “Take me,” he begged breathlessly. Dimly, as if through a fog, he realised it wasn’t real. Drasus was dead. But if his spirit came to visit his dreams, who was he to refuse it?

“As you wish,” Drasus replied, hoisting Gideon’s legs over his own. Gideon felt strong hands pulling at his sleeping shorts, sliding them off his legs roughly. Gideon’s erection slapped against his navel, wetly, once released from its confines. Gideon reached out to touch his lover, calloused hands tracing the muscles he’d caressed so many times before. There was an etherealness to it, as if he was touching a memory.

Drasus pushed Kytheon against the prison wall. After the communal bath time, there was breakfast. Drasus and Kytheon had been showing up late for a while now, but with how respected they were in the prison, nobody dared to comment on it. Kytheon had confessed his feelings for Drasus years before, but Drasus had insisted on waiting until Kytheon came of age before taking things any further.

Drasus was slender and couldn’t quite hold Kytheon’s weight on his own, so Kytheon was used to using the shelves of the storage room they sneaked into as support. “Hurry,” Kytheon whispered urgently.

“You’re so eager,” Drasus whispered back, before hungrily kissing Kytheon. “I can barely keep up.”

There was a fumbling of belts and cloth as Drasus unfastened his tunic. Kytheon had already unfastened his and had hitched it up his waist, then braced each leg against a shelf. He was spread open, waiting, his erection smearing precome on his belt. Drasus positioned his girthy member at Kytheon’s entrance. “Ready?” he asked. 

Kytheon nodded and focused his magic. If he saw an attack coming, he could become invulnerable to it. That talent had helped him during sex as well, allowing for painless penetration without the sort of stretching and preparing that he’d heard others had to do. For Kytheon, there was only a pleasant, warm fullness when Drasus hilted himself inside him, and the occasional surge of pleasure when a thrust hit a certain spot.

This time was no different, with Drasus sliding in easily and Kytheon groaning in pure satisfaction. _That_ was what he wanted, the feeling of being stretched wide and filled deep inside, that feeling of absolute rightness when Drasus pushed in as deep as it could possibly go. Kytheon growled in pleasure, deep in his throat, when Drasus began thrusting quickly, fucking him fast and rough the way he knew Kytheon liked it. Kytheon never had to touch himself, he clutched Drasus’s back like an anchor and then let the pleasure build up, his cock dripping precome steadily.

“I’m blessed,” Drasus whispered into Kytheon’s ear. “Nobody gets to see this side of you but me.”

Kytheon half-opened his eyes, struggling to focus. The pleasure was mounting, his mouth was open and he was sure he had a glazed, blissful look on his face. He smiled. “I could say the same,” he uttered back, taking in Drasus’s face, slick with sweat, his furrowed brow, his dark eyes filled with passion.

“I’m close,” Drasus breathed out shakily. His hands were clutching Kytheon’s ass, pressing him against the wall as he pounded Kytheon with quick, powerful thrusts.

“Fill me,” Kytheon begged shamelessly.

Drasus buried his face into Kytheon’s shoulder and came, slamming into the bigger man like a rutting minotaur. Drasus’s strangled moan as he came, his hot breath on Kytheon’s skin, the rush of liquid heat deep inside Kytheon, it all drove him over the edge. Kytheon’s eyes rolled back as he came, splattering the stone wall next to him with his seed. He clutched Drasus against him, wrapped his arms around the smaller man and held him close, riding out the waves of pleasure in each other’s arms.

Drasus looked up at Kytheon in the afterglow and smiled, open and vulnerable. He tucked a strand of loose hair behind Kytheon’s ear. “You know I’d die for you, right?” Drasus asked him.

“And I for you,” Kytheon replied back softly.

Gideon woke up sweaty and tangled in his sheets, his sleeping shorts sporting a large wet stain. He frowned. That hadn’t happened since he was a perpetually horny teenager repressing his urges and trying to avoid fantasising about his Irregulars. _I’m pent up,_ he thought sourly.

Gideon walked towards the bathroom, a heavy feeling of nostalgia draping him like a cloak. _Drasus._ He hadn’t thought about his first and only love in a very long time. The pain was still there, Gideon realised, not as sharp as it once had been, but there nonetheless. Perhaps it would never truly fade. Perhaps he’d always feel like crying when he remembered Drasus and the other Irregulars, but never be able to. Perhaps it’d always be this hollow tightness in his chest.

Gideon wanted love and intimacy again. He couldn’t deny it any longer. He couldn’t keep pretending he could rise above it, hide it all away under a resolve of steel. But he didn’t deserve it. Not after what he had done. Not after what had happened to Drasus.


	5. Finding Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gideon and Victor go on their first date. It's not very romantic.

Gideon poured himself into the hunt for Vraska, hitting dead end after dead end. It was easy to focus on the work: questioning witnesses, using temperamental Izzet devices to track aetheric signatures, sifting red herrings from real leads; it was all reliable, solid work. Nothing awkward or personal. It was also lonesome work, which Gideon didn’t mind. He wasn’t avoiding Victor, he was giving the man some space, letting him explore Ravnica at his own pace. Besides, the two had already shared a great deal. _More than I’ve shared with anyone in a very, very long time._ Letting some time go by would probably be for the best.

It never crossed Gideon’s mind that Victor would have his own designs.

Gideon came back to Jace’s place by dusk, legs pleasantly sore from walking all day, and found a note addressed to him waiting on a side table in the main hall. The handwriting was choppy and jagged.

_Gideon:_

_I’m told you’re out all day. There is a tavern near the Sunhome called Angel’s Rest. I’ve got a free dinner there, so I’d like to repay your lunch invitation. Come by my inn tonight if you’re interested and we’ll walk there, I’ve been told there’s a bloomed boulevard on the way. Let me show you a good time?_

_Victor._

After reading the missive, Gideon felt the room get hotter. He could practically hear the last line in Victor’s raspy voice, “Let me show you a good time?” whispered in his ear. Gideon had a surge of anger at the multiverse. It wasn’t _fair_. It was downright _evil_ to send him a being of effortless temptation just to make his life miserable.

Gideon reread the note. It was a date, right? It had to be. There was no way Victor just accidentally made innocent proposals sound sexual… right? Except he was exactly the type to do just that. And Gideon was the type to read more into something than it really was. Well, Jace was, but his paranoia was rubbing off on Gideon.

_So it’s either a date and I lead him on or it isn’t and I turn down a perfectly normal dinner between friends. Great._

Gideon sighed and rubbed his temples, note in hand. The only acceptable course was to go, in case it was just a friendly outing, and then find a way to politely decline any further advances if it was, in fact, a date. Gideon nodded to himself, pleased. That would work.

Of course, he should still bathe and change. It was the least he could do. Gideon had seen Angel’s Rest before, it was about as classy as the Boros guild could get. So he headed upstairs, his head occupied with thoughts of what he’d say when he got there, trying to parse Victor’s intentions and his own conflicting feelings. He bathed completely absentmindedly. By the time he paid attention to his surroundings, he was standing naked in his room, staring at his meager belongings, stray droplets falling from his wet hair down to the stone floor. There wasn’t much of a choice when it came to outfits. Gideon only had practical clothes, nothing too revealing or fancy. He picked a blue shirt in an attempt to bring out his eyes and his newest pair of pants.

He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like a common labourer out for a drink after work. It wasn’t exciting, but perhaps it was honest. He pulled his long hair back into a ponytail. No, too professional. He let it loose, then shook it a bit. Too wild? No, not wild. Carefree. Gideon didn’t remember what the feeling was like, but he remember he had liked it. Leaving worries behind for the night. It sounded nice. There was a pang of guilt, a dereliction of duty, but Gideon steeled himself against that side of him. He wouldn’t find Vraska overnight. It would take time. Besides, trouble was always brewing in the horizon. It wouldn’t take long before the Gatewatch was needed again.

Gideon made his way down to the main hall, where he was surprised to find Jace performing some sort of magic. His eyes were glowing blue as he scanned the main hall, examining something Gideon couldn’t see. The hieromancer stood at the foot of the stairs and waited. Jace eventually turned against him and scrutinised him.

“Where are you going?” the mind mage asked.

“I’m having dinner with Victor,” Gideon replied cautiously.

“Yes, he was here today. Wrote something. For you, clearly,” Jace said, the glow in his eyes subsiding at last.

“He wanted to repay the lunch invitation.”

“Convenient,” Jace uttered thoughtfully. There was a tense silence. Eventually, Gideon resolved to not indulge a paranoid mage any more than necessary and walked towards the front door. “What are your intentions towards him?”

Gideon stopped dead in his tracks. He took a deep breath and armed himself with patience. Without turning around to face Jace, he replied tersely, “I never pried into whatever history you and Liliana had. I ask that you do the same.”

“But you don’t trust her.”

Gideon turned around. “No, but I’m not asking you to trust him. I’m asking you to trust _me_.”

“You’re not making yourself trustworthy.” Jace’s tone was guarded.

“And how trustworthy do you think you look, when you have a history with a necromancer? With someone who sees other people as tools? With someone who holds nothing sacred and respects nothing but power?” Gideon snapped back, anger seeping into his tone.

Jace held Gideon’s stare with stony neutrality. “She saved us.”

Gideon bit back an incensed retort. Instead, he closed his eyes and turned around towards the front door again. When he opened his eyes again, he said coolly, “I’m going out to have dinner with a friend. Have a good night, Jace.”

If he closed the door with a tad more force than necessary, Gideon didn’t notice. In fact, he barely paid attention to his surroundings as he fumed all the way to Victor’s inn, gritting his teeth at the injustice, at the double standard he was being subjected to. As if Victor was anywhere near as dangerous as Liliana. Jace had his blind spots and prejudices, just like everyone else, but he thought he was above them. He thought himself objective, detached. But then again, Gideon thought bitterly, Jace had always been excellent at tricking himself.

Victor was actually expecting him outside the inn, sitting on a windowsill, wearing the same outfit he had worn for lunch a couple of days before. People walked by him, stared openly, but didn’t stop by to make conversation. It amazed Gideon how responsive the aura was to its owner’s desires. It was also good to see Victor having a more fine-tuned control over his magic.

“Gideon,” the warrior greeted him warmly. “I was really hoping you’d come.”

“Of course,” Gideon said, feeling his anger ebbing away, “it would’ve been rude to decline a friend’s offer.” He had phrased the reply precisely, hoping Victor would pick up on the implications. Victor’s smirk dampened at that, it became less genuine. It made Gideon feel guilty, but he swallowed it down.

The two men walked together down Springvale Boulevard, under a canopy of blood-red blossoms that filled the air with a cherry-like, spicy-sweet scent.

“Something happened before you came here?” Victor asked cordially.

Gideon hesitated to answer. “Just a disagreement.”

“I’ve been told I’m a good listener, you know,” the warrior said with a wink. Gideon couldn’t help but smile.

“It’s nothing.” He paused. “Jace is… he needs to trust more, that’s all.”

Victor nodded. “He’s a fearful man, I feel sorry for him.”

“Jace?”

“Yes, I could feel it during lunch the other day. There is a shadow over him that never leaves. He’s always running from it. He doesn’t understand that you can’t run from what’s within you,” Victor explained solemnly.

Gideon chuckled dryly. “You can say that again.”

Victor arched an eyebrow, amused. “Speaking from experience?”

“Is that the tavern, over there?” Gideon interjected, pointing at a sign in the distance with a pair of white wings.

When the two made it to Angel’s Rest, they were received exceptionally well. The Boros remembered Gideon and held him in high regard even after he left them to defend the gateless, and Victor had apparently made an outstanding impression at some point. They were ushered towards a secluded table that afforded a great deal of privacy, lit dimly by a few candles.

“What did you do to get a free dinner here?” Gideon asked, impressed.

Victor’s chest puffed out proudly. “They were having a friendly competition with another tavern and I helped swing the customers towards Angel’s Rest.”

Gideon grinned, imagining how easy it must’ve been for Victor to perform such a feat. “Well, I appreciate the invitation.”

“Do you?” Victor asked, his tone halfway between jest and concern. “Forgive me, but even for an empath, it’s hard to tell how you really feel about me.”

Gideon’s smile cracked. “It’s complicated.”

Victor chuckled. “I can tell! Your emotions fight each other like wild dogs,” he said matter-of-factly. “I should also tell you something, for the sake of honesty. When I touched your hand the night we met, I could feel what you felt at that moment.”

Gideon’s face flushed hot. There was a long, awkward pause. “So you knew all along.”

“I’m sorry if I offended; I don’t know your customs. I wasn’t sure if I should say something or pretend I was unaware. But you seem like the kind of man who values honesty,” Victor told him apologetically.

“How does it work? Can you feel what I’m feeling now?” Gideon asked, trying to gauge how much to say.

“My magic depends on closeness. If we’re this close,” Victor explained, gesturing at the air between them, “I can get some vague impressions. But if we touch, I can feel whatever you’re feeling as though I was feeling it myself.”

Gideon frowned. So the cat was out of the bag. “I can’t deny I find you attractive,” he said at last. “But we can’t.”

Victor waited for Gideon to elaborate. When that didn’t happen, he tilted his head in confusion. “Is there someone else?”

“Not exactly.”

Victor’s confusion grew. He narrowed his eyes as he studied the man across the table. Dinner arrived and they ate silently for several minutes. Finally, Victor said, “You don’t have to explain yourself if you don’t want to. I had imagined it was a complicated issue.”

Gideon nodded, but he didn’t lift his eyes off his plate.

Dessert arrived. It was some sort of flaming cream with chopped fruit. It was delicious.

Gideon didn’t know how to feel. He had never confided in anybody. He wasn’t sure he even knew _how_ to share something so deeply personal with another being. And yet, maybe that was what he needed. To share his past with someone. Chandra had done that with him and the Purifying Fire had found her unburdened. If he entered the Purifying Fire, it’d burn him to cinders. And perhaps he’d deserve it.

“The last time I…” he began, then stopped. “My last lover died,” he said at last. “And it was my fault.”

Victor looked at him with pity and Gideon couldn’t stand it. He looked away. “I’m sorry,” Victor said, sounding like he genuinely meant it.

“That’s why I can’t. We can’t.”

“Because it might happen again? Gideon, we all die, sooner or later. What’s the point of life if you’re afraid to love?” Victor asked him vehemently. It was clearly something he was passionate about.

“No, not that.” Gideon stared at the violet fire flickering before him. “Punishment.”

Victor’s entire demeanour changed drastically. He had been gung ho and ready to fight for his beliefs. Now he had deflated entirely and looked at Gideon with even more pity than Gideon thought a man could possibly have.

“Until when?” Victor asked him softly.

Gideon didn’t know what to reply. He had never thought about that. It had been an unspoken assumption that it’d go on forever. But he couldn’t say it out loud, it’d be too easy to argue against it. How could he defend that he deserved to be alone forever because he’d killed his best friends?

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t deserve this.”

“You don’t know what I did,” Gideon snapped, finally looking up to meet Victor’s gaze.

Silence stretched between them. “At some point,” Victor said at last, “it has to stop.”

“Why?” Gideon asked him hollowly.

“Because it would be a waste otherwise. You and the people whose lives you touch, deserve more than endless martyrdom. You deserve redemption and atonement, and those who care about you deserve to see you truly happy.” Victor smiled at him gently. “You saved worlds. You pledged to keep watch over the multiverse. You are more than a sword to be aimed at evil. You deserve to love and be loved again.”

Gideon’s heart was beating painfully. It was so hard to remain composed after hearing something he’d denied himself for so long. His guilt rejected Victor’s words, but there was a part of him that took them like a balm for a weary soul. Clenching his jaw, Gideon nodded. He knew what the right thing was. It was just so difficult. It was so much easier to withdraw, to continue his self-flagellation. And it was then that Gideon realised how selfish it was to do so. If he truly cared about others, he’d open himself to them, to love them and let them love him. If he truly cared about Drasus and the rest of his Irregulars, he’d think about what they would’ve wanted for him. They would’ve wanted him to be happy again. To mourn and then let go, instead of carrying their memories like chains. Gideon’s eyes watered and he took a deep breath to steady himself.

Victor offered his hand from across the table. Gideon took it and immediately he felt the pain dissolve into warm reassurance. It was a grounding feeling, which allowed him to regain his composure and beam at Victor gratefully. Gideon held on to the feeling until he felt he was ready. When he withdrew his hand, the pain came back and the warmth left, but he was prepared for it. He could bear it.

Gideon and Victor walked back the same path they came.

“Do you want to talk about them?” Victor asked softly. Gideon gave him a quizzical look. “Your lover.”

“Oh.” Gideon looked at Victor and thought about what he should do, rather than what he wanted to do. He extended his hand towards him, a silent request. Victor held his hand with his own and flooded him with warm support. “His name was Drasus. He was brave and reckless. Looked a little like you, but he was older than me. He always gave himself fully to whatever he was doing. Sometimes he had to be reminded,” Gideon said, thinking about his first day in prison, where Drasus had warned him to keep his head down, “that there’s hope.” Gideon had to stop, emotion tightening his chest.

The two walked silently for a while, holding hands.

“I want to tell you the rest,” Gideon said with determination. “But I need time.”

“Mourning takes time,” Victor replied, squeezing Gideon’s hand reassuringly.

The two stopped by an old oak tree in a garden off the main avenue. It had a worn bench, elven design. A Selesnyan remnant. The two sat down under the tree, encircled by buildings and distant voices. Gideon looked at Victor’s hand on his own, thumbed the scars across smooth skin. The scars of a warrior, the kind he’d never have with a power like his.

“How… why…?” Gideon began, unsure. “Why do all this for me? We’ve barely met.”

“That requires some explanation. Got time for a story?” Victor asked nonchallantly. Gideon nodded. “Before I… could travel, I was very self-confident. I thought I knew everything, could get everything I could possibly want, have the entire world worshipping the ground I stepped on.”

Gideon’s eyes widened in surprise. “You?”

Victor chuckled. “I know! I was young, foolish and drunk on power. My brother eventually convinced me to see the Oracle of Embers, to know what I should do to fulfill my dreams. She dwelled in one of the tallest peak of Regatha, a place where living lava met powerful cinderstorms. To reach her, you had to overcome trials meant to test your body, mind and soul.” Victor paused, then gave Gideon a confident look. “I passed them, easily. Every step I climbed, I felt more assured. I could feel my destiny coming to meet me.”

Gideon got a sense of foreboding. In Theros, it was rarely good when Fate came to find you.

“She’s hard to describe,” Victor continued thoughtfully. “It’s like she was fire wrapped in smoke and caked in cinder. Her form was barely human. And she spoke with a woman’s voice, but it was old and grave. She looked at me with eyes of pure flame,” the warrior told Gideon, his voice charged with intensity. “And said, ‘You come to me for guidance, yet you are a child grasping in the dark.’ I got so angry!” Victor said with a chuckle. “But she didn’t let me speak. She said, ‘You can make others follow you, but what is the point? What makes you worth following?’ And then I shouted, ‘I’m a warrior!’ at the top of my lungs.”

Gideon laughed. “Oh, I bet that went well.”

Victor joined in the laughter and nodded. “You have no idea. So she raised her hands and summoned a sandstorm around us, even though there was no sand in the peak at all. She shouted back, in this loud, booming voice, ‘Warriors are like grains of sand!’ and then opened her arms, scattering the sandstorm to the four winds. Then she came to me and placed her finger on my chest. See here,” Victor pointed out a small knot of scar tissue right over his collarbone. “It burned me like hot iron. She fixed her fire-eyes on mine and told me, ‘Here you hold the power to shape worlds, and what do you do with it? You wage war like a fool. The power to unite, to share and bolster, wasted on destructive vanity.’ And then she sank her finger into my chest.”

Gideon grimaced, seeing the flashback of pain in Victor’s eyes.

“I’ve never felt agony like that in my entire life.” Victor grinned weakly. “And I hope I never do again. I remember tears streaming down my face. My mouth open but I couldn’t even scream. I think she burnt my soul,” he uttered numbly, staring vacantly ahead. “I remember so clearly her last words to me. ‘Here and now, you are ashes in the wind. Begone, warrior, and become a man worth following.’ That’s when I, uh. Travelled away. For the first time.”

It was Gideon’s turn to squeeze Victor’s hand reassuringly. Victor turned to the hieromancer at last and smiled warmly. “That’s why I wanted to be here for you. Help you in any way I can. I don’t want to be ashes in the wind.”

Gideon echoed the warrior’s smile. “You aren’t. Not to me.” With his free hand, he gently caressed Victor’s face, tracing a smooth scar and then trimmed facial hair. Victor leaned into his hand and projected a feeling of gratefulness into the touch.

Gideon moved closer. “May I kiss you?” he whispered timidly.

Victor nodded. “Do with me whatever you desire,” he replied in that low, raspy voice that sent a shiver down Gideon’s spine. Victor held Gideon’s gaze. There was a hunger in the warrior’s eyes, but Gideon noticed he was patiently waiting for him to make the first move. 

Gideon leaned forward and softly brushed his lips against Victor’s. It was a chaste, delicate thing. It felt foreign to Gideon, but he liked it. It wasn’t the familiar memory of kissing Drasus, but something new and full of promise. The two men remained still for a moment, tingling lips barely touching. Victor leaned closer and kissed Gideon back, slowly but deliberately. It was encouraging, boldening. Gideon tilted his head and deepened the kiss, closing his eyes and giving himself into the pleasure.

He felt Victor’s hand in his hair, gently carding through it. It was an intimate, caring touch that made Gideon feel like it was easing old pains away. He had been starving for such touches.

When they broke away from the kiss, Gideon’s breath was quickened, his cheeks a tad flustered. He had a big dumb smile on his face, he was sure of that. Victor looked pleased and more genuine, Gideon felt like the man was letting his guard down with him and he felt the urge to protect that trust, to repay it in kind.

But there was always duty looming in the horizon.

“I’d love to stay longer…” Gideon began regretfully.

“I understand,” Victor chuckled good-humouredly. “I’ve heard about your deeds in Ravnica. A man like you, I’m surprised you aren’t always constantly busy.”

“Jace and Lavinia have done a lot for this city. It’s not as bad as it used to be.”

“I’m sure,” the warrior replied as they got back to the boulevard. “You should take that street, it’ll be closer to Jace’s place. Come by sometime soon.”

“Thank you for the lovely evening.”

“It was my pleasure,” Victor replied with what could only be a flirtatious grin.

Gideon walked back to Jace’s feeling lighter, excitement and giddiness and anxiety burbling in his chest in equal measure. He went straight to bed, replaying the night’s events in his head. He didn’t even notice Jace lurking by the library door, watching him as he climbed the stairs to the bedrooms.

He didn’t see Jace’s worried features, nor the stony determination that set over them when Gideon disappeared from view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am having a lot of fun with Victor's backstory.


	6. Glimpsing Starborn Veils

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jace enters Victor's mind and discovers something highly unusual.

Jace watched Gideon disappear into the bedrooms and then began a hurried descent to the main hall. He couldn’t do this sort of investigation during the day, not with Lavinia breathing down his neck. And besides, he rationalised as he opened his front door and slipped into the night, he knew where Victor slept. Who knew where the man would be during the daytime? Better catch him unaware.

It didn’t take Jace long to get to The Scabbard. A simple illusion and he was just another weary traveller looking for a place to spend the night. An old man, indistinct features, wispy white hair and a dark hooded cloak. A bit dramatic, but it would do.

As Jace walked by the patrons and willed them not to notice him, he scanned their surface thoughts for mentions of Victor. He was there all right. A warm, pulsing sensation, clearly magical. Jace studied it carefully, it wasn’t a type of magic he had encountered often. It wasn’t subtle at all, if one knew what to look for. Like a coating of glittering dust that smelled of musk, sandalwood and a hint of something homely, like roasted chestnuts. Jace could see the appeal; even when it was being distantly examined it held an undeniable allure.

Jace’s eyes began to glow blue, he stood by a corner and looked down, concealing his gaze with his illusionary hood. He dug deeper inside the patrons’ memories, searching for Victor. In their memories, the warrior looked more vivid than anything else. His colours were bright and nitid, everything else was faded and worn, or in some cases, completely drained of colour. In addition to that, Jace swiftly discovered each person had a different impression of Victor. Some saw him as a big, imposing man, with bulging muscles. Others saw him as lanky and tall, others as an idealised version of whatever they thought was an “average” man. Jace sought for the telltale signs of illusion, but found none.

 _Can’t be an illusion. It’s personalised, which means it’s mental, but there’s no trace of it in their minds._ The discovery left Jace thoroughly puzzled. Surely it couldn’t be real? Surely he couldn’t change in size and looks based on people’s perceptions? And yet… his face remained roughly the same (some people didn’t like the facial hair, apparently, others wanted it thicker) and while the changes in body size and shape were distinguishable, they weren’t enough to make him look significantly different. It was as though his body had a certain plasticity that responded to the desires or expectations of the bewitched. _Fascinating._

Unfortunately, there was little else of use in the patrons’ minds. Their memories were naturally less stable in the presence of emotional magic, and their retention of details, even those related to Victor, was very poor. Jace examined the remnant of Victor’s magic one more time. It was smooth and silky, with very little substance underneath it. He could dispel it easily, like swatting a cobweb, but Jace thought it a waste of efforts. The commoners didn’t matter.

The mind mage slinked upstairs, following crimson traces all the way to the best room in the inn. Jace paused by the door and looked past it, examining the room from the outside with his own magic. There was no resistance. Not even a single ward against scrying. It was as though he thought himself without enemies, without anything to fear. Jace shook his head in disbelief. The door to the room had a simple lock, not even reinforced with magic at all. It took a while and some strain, but a bit of mind over matter managed to unlock the door and let Jace inside.

The mind mage stood by the foot of Victor’s bed, watching the gorgeous man sleep. The warrior was naked under the covers, presumably, because he had shoved part of his bedsheets away and Jace could observe every single sculpted muscle all the way to an enticing V-shape in his navel. There was a certain temptation to pull the covers away and get a good look at what laid beneath, but Jace held back. That would be inappropriate. He was doing a simple invasion of the mind. There was no need to get unprofessional.

Shaking off the distractions, Jace set out to work. He walked to the side of the bed, extended his hands and placed them above Victor’s head. After a few moments of concentration, they began to glow blue. Accessing the warrior’s mind was easy, the man had no mental shields to speak of. His dreams were vague, foggy things, blurry shapes in a mist that tasted of arsenic and salt. _Strange,_ the mind mage thought, pausing to examine the images. _That’s not normal. An intrusion?_

The corner of Jace’s mouth betrayed a tiny grin. Now _that_ was interesting. A mystery worth pursuing, at last. He moved past the dreams, into the outer rims of the mind. It was like peering down the waters of a lake, trying to glimpse at the truth in its depths. There wasn’t much of use near the surface. A general interest for Ravnica. An indistinct, mournful memory. Strong affection for Gideon. Fabricated, perhaps? Jace had mindsculpted himself time and again. He had planted thoughts in his own head, false memories, to throw other telepaths off. Wouldn’t it make sense for an emotional mage to create false emotions for someone? To pass a cursory examination? Jace nodded. He had to go deeper.

The mind mage plunged into the lake. Its waters were warm and welcoming, unlike most of the minds he’d entered before, which ranged from chilly to absolutely frigid. The scant few that were warmer tended to be those of trusting people. Jace felt a pang of self-doubt. Surely that could be faked as well? 

Jace’s mental projection landed on a beautiful panorama. He was staring at a scarlet sunset, perched atop a cliff. Endless mountains stretched all around him. It was an austere, breathtaking beauty. Each mindscape was different, individualised. Jace’s was his sanctum in Ravnica. Victor’s was probably Regatha, from what he’d been told. But… not quite. There were columns and ruins scattered along the mountain range Jace was on. The sculpted white marble was worn, but it clashed horribly with the red clay and rough stone of its surroundings. There was something that was simply _wrong_ in Victor’s mindscape. Jace remembered the mist in Victor’s dreams. Arsenic and salt, so different from the warm sandalwood of his magic.

Jace jumped off the cliff, landing soundlessly on a valley between several peaks. The mountains cast a shadow over it and Jace knew he was on the right path. To reach the depths of the mind, one had to seek out the darkest, deepest recesses of the mindscape. Jace looked about for a gorge or cave, and found one nearby. The mind mage plunged into the darkness, his hand casting a cold blue light about him.

Victor’s deepest recesses were absolutely featureless. Nothing but endless darkness, stretching as far as Jace could see. He had seen that only a handful of times before, but never quite so vast. _He’s been mindsculpted? But the scope of it…_ Jace’s surprise grew as he followed deeper into the man’s mind. Jace reached out to touch the darkness. Normally, there would be a symbolic representation of what was lost or changed. A cave wall, a building, something. All magic leaves a trace, that was something Jace knew. Even the most expert of mind mages would leave traces of his tampering. There should be _something_ physical in Victor’s mind, even if it had been stripped bare and bleached into absolute blankness, there should be a remnant that there had been something there, once.

Victor’s mind held nothing but emptiness beneath the surface.

Jace reached out with his magic to the surface, trying to put what he knew on a time scale. There was about a decade of truth in Victor’s mind. Everything else was empty. Oh, there were childhood memories, Jace went immediately looking for those. But they were simply that, memories. When an event happened, it left a solid remnant in the mind, then the memories followed. One could alter or erase the memories, but a part of the mind always knew the truth, even if only subconsciously. Yet in Victor’s case, if one were to delete the memories of his past, there would be nothing there.

 _What a frightening thought,_ Jace realised. _I could destroy or rewrite most of his identity. Even if he had it reversed, he’d only have his recent years to lean back on._ The mind mage suddenly felt very aware of himself and his motions. It would be far too easy to do something terrible.

Jace pushed deeper, he needed to be sure there was truly nothing there. He had to be thorough.

And when the blue light of his hand glinted off something in the distance, Jace knew he had made the right choice. The mind mage ran towards the distant structure, glimpsing something cold and white that gleamed pale blue under his light. As it grew closer, he could see the same sculpted marble from the ruins above. Jace’s heart raced. Finally. The heart of the mystery.

The structure looked, to Jace, like a mausoleum. It was a square marble room, very tall, with columns in the corners and flanking the massive double doors. The style of the construction was elegant but not too ornate, with simple geometrical lines and frescos of athletic men and women in simple, borderline skimpy robes. It was a style that Jace had never encountered personally, probably a plane he had never visited.

He touched the double doors, probed them with magic, but they remained completely unresponsive. He tried to extend his senses into the mausoleum but found that he couldn’t see past the exterior structure. There wasn’t even any active resistance, as one might expect from a mental shield, it was rather like pushing against a solid wall. Jace focused on the structure itself, trying to feel what sort of magic had created it. The taste of bitter medicine invaded his mouth and he recoiled. Like the mist in Victor’s dreams.

Jace walked around the structure, searching for clues. On the wall opposite to the double doors, there was a legend carved into the marble, in a language he’d never seen before. Jace touched the inscription and strained his magic, focusing on the _meaning_ of it, the message that transcended words.

_“I bring the panacea to the worthy, clinging at the edge of the abyss.”_

Jace pulled back and stared at the inscription. If the inscription came from whoever had done the mindsculpting… but it wasn’t mindsculpting. That was the key. Victor’s mind hadn’t been tampered with. It was as though… as though he didn’t _exist_ before… before what? What had been the first instance of truth?

Jace doubled back. He raced out of the darkness at top speed and emerged into the perennial sunset of Victor’s mindscape. He closed his eyes and focused. What was the earliest piece of truth?

_He opened his eyes to see a face similar to his own. Younger. Eager. Determined. A man with everything to prove._

_“Come on, Vic! You know I’m right! You know the Oracle of Embers will know what to do!” the young man exclaimed passionately. So much to prove._

_He grinned confidently and made a show of magnanimous acquiescence. “Fine, fine, I’ll go see the Oracle. Besides, overcoming the trials will make for a good story, won’t it?”_

_The younger man’s brash smirk was so much like his own._

Jace blinked in confusion. That was the first true moment of his life? It was so… uneventful. And worst of all, it held no clue of who was behind everything. Jace paced back and forth, lost in thought. The younger man knew Victor. Did he also suffer from the same condition, or had his memories simply been altered? But what was the magic involved? It wasn’t mental magic, that much was certain. It was something more… thorough. Some sort of reality revision? _Fascinating._

Jace slowly pulled his mental projection from Victor’s mind. As he ascended, he wondered if Victor was even aware. Jace thought of himself, of his own past, a brainwashed agent of malevolent powers that controlled him and altered his memories. He had searched Victor’s mind for any hidden intent, but it was all dreadfully banal. The man was not malicious, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. It was all too possible he was some sort of sleeper agent that could be activated later on.

Jace frowned. It both made sense and didn’t. Yes, Victor was charming and appealing and could conceivably get within range of a target, but he drew far too much attention to himself and was the exact opposite of subtle. Surely he’d garner great infamy if he was activated, news travelled fast amongst planeswalkers and Victor was very hard to forget. So what could be the purpose? And if Victor was some sort of agent, how would he know what to do, who to approach? There were no clues in his mind that he was being directed by anyone.

Jace stared at the sleeping man in front of him, his handsome features completely relaxed. What if he was wrong? What if Victor wasn’t an agent? What if it was something else, like what had happened between Jace himself and Kallist, where they had swapped minds? What if Victor was a mind in a new body? Or the result of a broken timeline? Jace simply didn’t have enough clues to piece the mystery together.

As he disappeared into the night, Jace resolved to do more research. The answer had to lie somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE PLOT THICKENS.


	7. Seeking Without, Seeking Within

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jace pursues the mystery of Victor's origin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me a good while to get out, since I basically wrote myself into a corner. Figuring out a way for Jace to get the information he needed in a satisfactory way drove me up the wall. My endless thanks to wanderingaddict for his patience when it came to my whining and pickiness.

Jace’s mind was at its best when there was an interesting mystery to solve. It was why he tried to approach his duties as the Guildpact as a series of puzzles. How to incorporate the destructive Gruul into civilised society? How to improve the lives of the Rakdos labourers so that they wouldn’t give into the demonic cult that hid within the guild? How to keep the Dimir from plotting everyone else’s downfall? How to steer the experimentation of Simic and Izzet towards something useful for society? How to keep the gateless from being exploited by the rest of the guilds? All puzzles for Jace to solve.

Lavinia was invaluable in this, her stern, down to earth attitude kept him grounded and her impeccable knowledge of the Law sometimes gave him obscure solutions that might otherwise escape him. Unfortunately, Jace couldn’t count on Lavinia to solve Victor’s mystery.

He couldn’t rely on anyone, really. Asking Gideon would tip his hand. Chandra, Nissa and Liliana were still in Kaladesh. The only person he could go to for help was Ral Zarek, who might have visited the plane that inscription was from, but Jace quickly ruled that out. Ral would doubtlessly want to see Victor for himself and that would spell all sorts of disaster. While Ral was undeniably brilliant, he was also emotional, exactly the type of person that would be easily swayed by Victor’s magic. Consulting any library or archive in Ravnica was also a fruitless endeavour, since none would have any information on something outside Ravnica itself. And Jace couldn’t simply planeswalk away and explore blindly, not with his responsibilities.

He stared at his bowl of stew and fished out a portion of meat with his fork. He chewed on it thoughtfully, barely registering its actual flavour. The inscription was probably the key to solving the mystery, but there wasn’t a feasible way to pursue that lead. So what else did he have? Jace continued to eat absentmindedly, going over his facts. He could track down Victor’s brother and check what sort of magic was at work.

Regatha. He’d been there once, tracking down Chandra to recover the scroll she had stolen. He barely remember the plane. He had only been to the area around Keral Keep, and it was awful in his memory. Sunny and dry, with red-tinted earth and wind that began hot by the mountain base and grew colder and harsher as one ascended. It was a rugged, miserable place for Jace, who was used to the comforts of the city.

Jace looked at the clock atop the mantle of the dining room fireplace. He had a surprising amount of his lunchtime left. He wolfed down the last of the stew, wincing when it scalded him, and then readied himself for a planar journey. He glamoured himself to appear like a nondescript traveller, garbed in a brown cloak, and then stepped through the Blind Eternities into Regatha. He focused on Victor’s recollection of Austin (not that he had paid much attention to his cursory scan of Victor’s memories) and ended up on a mountain ridge. Jace grimaced. Red, dry earth all around him. The sun beating down on him. What a forsaken hellscape.

He looked about him and spotted some crude buildings not too far away, made of hardwood and roughly cut stone. The buildings had spikes alongside the roofs. What bizarre constructions. When he approached them, he saw it was a hunting camp. Furs and leathers were hung up to dry and tan, smoke rose from the chimneys, weapon racks were placed conveniently next to every front door.

There weren’t many people around, nothing like the bustling streets of Ravnica. It didn’t take long for Jace to find Austin, as he scanned the minds of the hunters minding their business throughout the camp. He willed them to ignore him as he made his way to the largest lodge. There was a lanky man talking amicably with a pair of young hunters, seemingly dispensing compliments, judging from the smiles. The man’s resemblance to Victor was undeniable, yet he looked much more realistic and natural. He was still in excellent physical shape and was rather handsome, but he seemed much more… normal.

“Austin?” Jace interjected himself into the conversation. “May we speak?”

The young man dismissed the others. “That’s me alright.”

Jace studied him carefully. He tried to sense any magic around him, found nothing but hedge-witch cures and shamanic blessings. _Impossible._ The mind mage stared into the confused brown eyes of the man before him and started digging into his memories. There was no subtle entry via dreams, but a full-on invasion. Against another mage, it’d be inviting retaliation. Against a simple warrior, no matter how strong or fierce, it was but mind over matter. There was a brief moment of resistance, a shamanic protection that smelled of incense and smoked spice, but it caved before the exertion of his will. So far the trip had been a tad exhausting, with the planeswalking and the magic, but he intended to keep his stay short.

Austin’s memories were bland and predictable. Just another ordinary man in the multiverse. In stark contrast with Victor, he hadn’t been mindsculpted or had his mind altered in any way. _Interesting._ Jace’s scrutiny focused on the memory he had seen in Victor’s mind, the first real moment of Victor’s existence. He sought out the moment immediately before it, then examined the transition from one memory to another. _It’s completely seamless. This isn’t someone’s magic at all. This is a reality revision. It’s like when a changed timeline asserts itself over the old one. The memories aren’t altered; any that existed before the revision are simply gone for good._

Jace stepped back into reality. He looked at Austin’s unfocused eyes, studied the facial resemblance. _There’s no questioning that’s his brother. But I don’t think there’s anything useful left here._

“Forget me,” he told the young man almost as an afterthought, before ducking into a dark corner. Austin regained his senses just as Jace returned to Ravnica under the cover of shadow.

Jace stepped into his dining room. He looked at the time. He was supposed to start working on drafting a defence of the worker unions that were starting to form amongst Rakdos, gateless and Golgari, but he already had some choice words thought out. He could delay it for a bit. For a good mystery.

Tracking down Victor as he moved across Ravnica was easy, like following a person with a distinctively sweet perfume. Traces of his magic were left wherever he went, particularly whenever he went through a busy street or a crowd. Jace found the trail ended in a bathhouse and sighed. He was already tired from exerting himself and it was barely past noon. There was no way he was getting undressed in there, so evidently more illusions would be required. To be absolutely certain he’d have no problems, he made himself fully invisible and slipped inside, right by the bored clerk chatting with a bath assistant. The mind mage followed the sandalwood trail to the top floor, their fanciest one judging from the decor, and quietly slipped inside the only occupied room.

Inside, he found Victor floating in a steaming pool, which was made of dark red stone and raised on a dais. There were candles around it, the only light sources in the room, and from the ceiling hung a bouquet of flowers. The flowers spun lazily from their chain in perpetual motion, petals drifting down to the water below. The water itself was coloured a dark pink, and contained a great deal of petals and glittering jewels. Victor was nude, eyes closed in utter relaxation, his body slightly sinking and raising from the water with every breath. Jace appreciated the way the man’s muscled physique gleamed in the penumbra, the flicker of the candlelight dancing tantalisingly across his wet skin. It was impossible to miss the thick swell of Victor’s member over the water. His navel was submerged but his soft cock emerged through the surface before sinking beneath it once more, reminding Jace of the undulation of a sea serpent. A rather… _healthy_ sea serpent.

Jace shook his head and focused on the task at hand. Jace knew Victor couldn’t have been created by the reality revision. If he had been, there would be no fake memories. When reality was altered, the changes were real. That meant Victor was an external player in the reality revision and was incorporated into it. Jace’s intuition told him Victor was at the heart of whatever had caused the phenomenon, which meant he had to find the plane of origin. That marble mausoleum in Victor’s mind knew where it had been before, Jace just needed time to focus on it and slowly draw out a sense of direction. If he had at least an inkling of where to go, he could find the plane in the Blind Eternities.

The mind mage considered remaining invisible, but he didn’t know how much time he’d need. Besides, trying to follow Victor invisibly throughout the bathhouse would be a rather difficult endeavour, not to mention concentrating on two spells at once would tax him even more than he was already, for no good reason.

“Victor,” Jace said in greeting as he shed his invisibility off.

The handsome man opened his eyes and smiled. “Jace! I didn’t hear you enter. What brings you here?”

Jace blinked, surprised. Victor had made no attempt to cover himself. Suddenly, Jace realised concentrating on a single spell might be less taxing to his magic, but could be extremely difficult in the presence of someone as distracting as the man before him.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind,” Jace replied at last.

The mind mage reached out to Victor with his magic, feeling his way towards the marble mausoleum. The task didn’t need his full attention, so his senses could remain in the physical realm, but there was no way he could also pay attention to what Victor was actually saying. Thankfully, Jace knew well how to carry a conversation without paying attention to it in the slightest. He asked basic questions he already knew the answer to, buying time as he probed the mental construction to get a feel for it.

Eventually, Victor finished his soak and moved on to the next room, drying off with a woolen towel. The room consisted of a bench in the middle and some seats around him, and an entire apothecary of oils and ointments. Some vials had been set aside, probably recommended for him, but Victor began to curiously inspect the shelves, picking up the small bottles and uncorking them to smell them. He made appreciative noises every so often, and even added a blood-red vial to the ones that had been set aside.

The look of Victor’s perfectly sculpted ass was rather distracting, it was decently sized but not too big, firm but not too perky; there was a strong foundation of muscle underneath that gave it a more square, rugged look. Like Gideon’s, if Jace remembered correctly.

He sat down on one of the chairs and tried to focus. He was getting a very vague sense of direction from the mausoleum. It was hard to explain to someone who couldn’t planeswalk. It wasn’t north or south, or even up or down. “That way” was the most correct way to put it, but it was so woefully inadequate.

“I can’t stop recommending this place, Jace,” Victor said conversationally. “The massages are excellent! The quality of the products is really good, too. And the services they offer! Soaking in jeweled water, skin purification, whatever ‘moisturising’ means… I even got a deep shave, and look!” he said, pointing at his navel. “So smooth!”

Jace’s concentration faltered. He had been trying to avoid looking at Victor too closely, but when the man drew attention to his navel, with the muscles forming a perfect V shape, Jace’s eyes wandered further. To Victor’s dick, resting soft and thick against his sac, which hung smooth and heavy between his legs. It was a struggle, but Jace managed to look away and refocus on his exploration. The warm and humid atmosphere, he thought, would explain the heat in his cheeks.

He did his best to tune out Victor after that, feeling like he was finally starting to get a sense of direction, when the other man started applying the lotions that had been selected. At first it was easy to ignore, he began with his arms and shoulders, then his back and chest. Jace worried he’d be asked to help apply the oils to Victor’s back, but thankfully the man was flexible enough to reach everywhere with his hands. Then came the feet and the legs, and Jace began getting distracted again, so he redoubled his efforts to keep his attention on the trace. He was so close. He finally had a fairly decent idea of where the plane was, but he needed to make sure.

And then Victor laid back on the bench in the middle of the room, lifted his legs in the air, and began rubbing scented oil on the back of his thighs. Jace’s attention wandered. Victor kept rubbing, stopping a moment to pour more oil on his hand and then started kneading his ass, working the lotion in and leaving the skin glossy and silk-smooth. Jace’s pants began to feel rather uncomfortable and he crossed his legs.

“I really like this one,” Victor continued the conversation. “Essence of red rose, bloodcherry oil, silkworm distillate… I’ve never had skin so smooth before!”

Victor moved on to his abdomen, working the product into his sculpted muscles. When he progressed downward, he lathered his member and stroked it slowly, leaving it distractingly shiny. He then spread his legs even further and started on the cleft between his ass cheeks, rubbing the oil into every crevice, tugging his sac to ensure full coverage. But what made Jace completely lose his concentration was when Victor poured a dollop of the oil on his fingers and then began to work his hole, stretching it easily around his fingers.

Jace had to make a conscious effort not gawk, especially when Victor casually commented on his next choice of product. “So that was for the whole body, and this one is apparently to fortify the amorous muscles. What a classy way to put it!” he chuckled, pouring a blue-green cream on his fingers and then easily slipping them inside, his hole distending without resistance. “Ooh, it tingles.” Victor removed his fingers and then looked, puzzled, at his own cock, resting on his thigh like a sleeping serpent. “This is a muscle too, right?” 

Jace could only blink, gripped by the spectacle. Perverse thoughts fluttered through his head. He saw himself helping the man apply the products, fingering Victor as he anointed him. How many fingers could he take? Easily four. He also thought of taking one of the larger vials, a bottle really, and working it inside Victor’s hole, watching the ring of muscle distending around the glass. By this point, Jace’s dick was fully hard, extending down his thigh like a poorly concealed weapon. He could only cross the other leg over it and hope it subsided by the time he had to get up and leave.

“Can’t hurt to try,” Victor resolved eventually, smearing the cream along his manhood. He was very thorough with it, making sure every last inch was completely lathered. “Oh, whoa.” he uttered, watching it harden and twitch. “This is some serious tingling.” The already impressive cock hardened fully, reaching past Victor’s belly button, and then twitched there with every heartbeat. It was engorged with blood, a dark, angry red from head to base. “Is it… growing?” Victor whispered. Slowly, he poured more cream on his hand and then started stroking himself.

“Fuck,” Victor moaned, “it feels like electricity all over it.” When Victor removed his hand, it was undeniable there had been some clear growth, a decent handful of inches. It was now the sort of dick that could be stroked with two hands and still leave a good portion uncovered. “What’s in this?” Victor asked with interest. He picked up the bottle and brought it closer to read the small letters on the label. “Simic’s Love Tonic. The invaluable aide to a happy, healthy night of love. Promotes the regeneration and fortification of the amorous muscles. Contains distilled autochthon blood, leviathan gland secretions, distilled wurm blood… I don’t even know what half of these things are.”

Jace almost snorted aloud. Simic. No fucking wonder. Of course. Who else would make a product like that? He didn’t know whether to be grateful or appalled. While Victor had been reading the bottle, the cream had finished acting and his cock was slowly softening. However, even flaccid, the monster between his legs would still create a bulge that would be simply impossible to hide.

“I need to get some of these for my travels. They must sell them in apothecaries, right? What a wonderful product!” Victor laughed excitedly. “Then this one is for the face…”

It took Jace far more than it should’ve to realise that watching Victor anoint his face with a milky-white product was probably a good cue for returning to work. It wasn’t easy, since Victor splashed the liquid on his face first and then rubbed it in, which for a moment made him look like he’d been freshly ejaculated on, but Jace managed to pull through in the end. The other man continued applying the lotions to innocuous body parts (though he almost lost concentration again when Victor began vigorously rubbing his pectoral and abdominal muscles with a product that was clearly designed to bring them out even more), and Jace didn’t falter again. He double-checked that his sense of direction was correct, and by the time he ended the spell, Victor was stoppering all the vials and bottles and returning them to a table by the shelves.

“I must get going” Jace said, standing at last. He had to use a minor illusion to hide his erection reaching halfway down his inner thigh. “Lots of paperwork.”

“Thanks for the company, it was fun,” Victor said with genuine good humour.

Jace practically escaped the building, walking fast and stiffly. When he got to a secluded corner, he took a deep breath and then planeswalked away, following the sense of direction he had obtained from his reading.

He arrived in a bustling city of white marble. Jace looked around and smiled triumphantly. This was it. The same aesthetics as the marble in Victor’s mindscape. He instinctively knew the name of the plane he was in.

_Theros._

Jace looked around. He was behind a statue, near a big square. Most of the citizens wore robes, some were discoursing nearby. They looked learnt and scholarly, so Jace approached him.

“Excuse me, could you help a researcher?”

The philosophers looked at him in amazement. _Shit, I forgot to make myself look more normal._ “Why yes, of course,” one of them replied. “What do you need help with, foreigner?”

“I found an inscription and I’m trying to track down its origin. ‘I bring the panacea to the worthy, clinging at the edge of the abyss.’”

“You’ll have to ask in the Temple of Pharika,” the other philosopher said, gesturing at a building in the distance. “The priesthood will know where that comes from, exactly.”

“Thank you,” Jace uttered, then hurried to the marble temple in the distance. He was so close. He could practically taste the answer to the mystery.

When he entered the temple, he smelled something familiar. Arsenic and salt. His heart began to race. It was the right place.

“May I help you, foreigner?” a woman asked from behind him. Jace turned around to face a blindfolded gorgon. She was impressively tall and the golden jewelry she wore made her seem important and regal. She painted an intimidating picture.

“I was looking for someone who may help me find the origin of an inscription,” Jace said, then recited the words to her.

“That’s part of Pharika’s teachings, but it’s incomplete. The full quote is ‘The direst venom becomes a panacea under Pharika’s guidance. I bring it to the worthy, clinging at the edge of the abyss.’ It’s one of the quotes the priesthood uses when preaching to those outside the faith, for it conveys the essence of Pharika’s domain over poison, medicine and everything that lies between.”

Jace frowned. So he had tracked down Victor’s possible origin, but he hadn’t found the explanation he had been looking for. He thanked the gorgon priestess and left the temple, planeswalking back to Ravnica behind an olive tree.

Jace sat at his desk, exhausted, and looked at the blank paper in front of him. He felt he was missing an important piece of the puzzle. Something that would fit at the core of the mystery and give sense to every other clue.

He simply had to find it.


	8. Baring Rainslick Skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victor and Gideon get it on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in posting this, these past few months have been rather difficult for me and my anxiety didn't help at all when writing this chapter.
> 
> This chapter has graphic sex and the main "fetishes" to watch out for are deepthroating, pec fucking, bukkake and cum play. Main story tags have been updated accordingly.

Having a couple of days to busy himself had done wonders for Gideon. His emotions had sublimated, condensed into a warm balm over old, reopened wounds. It felt hopeful. It felt like healing. His mood lifted, he found himself smiling without reason, he even felt more energetic than usual. One night he couldn’t sleep, he climbed to the roof of Jace’s building and enjoyed sitting down at the edge with the cool night breeze while Ravnica’s street lights glinted all around. He felt a comfortable peace, a stillness that didn’t spur him into motion.

For the first time in many years, Gideon made a conscious effort to relax and found his body willing. He laid back on the cold stone and stretched, letting the wind dance across his skin and flutter his clothes. He took deep breaths, inhaling the verdant scents of the square below, savouring the crispness of the night air. His mind tentatively reached out to the thought of being with another man, and instead of finding self-hatred and guilt, he found curiosity and a wisp of longing. Gideon smiled, stunned, as lightning flashed across the cloudy Ravnican sky. The layers and layers of emotional scar tissue that he had built over the years had finally dissolved enough to let him feel peaceful about the idea of moving on with his life.

It was an exciting prospect, his heart raced at the thought. Another lover. Another man’s touch. It felt so foreign and distant, yet once he allowed himself to accept his desire, it was as though he had opened the floodgates. He _craved_ it so badly. He felt he could even flirt with a total stranger! Feeling the first raindrops on his bare skin, Gideon decided he was going to pursue Victor, Jace’s paranoia be damned. That night, the hieromancer went to bed with an anxious but excited grin, mental gears spinning with ideas.

Gideon’s dreams were a frustrating series of glimpses of a man’s figure obscured by wind-tossed veils. The cool white fabric was whipped against him, backlit by moonlight and shimmering with the sound-scent of rain. Every time he reached against the veils to touch the shadow behind them, he would grasp nothing but air, and the veils would part to reveal even more fabric behind.

The following morning was gray and damp, with a clinging chill that would get most people to consider an additional layer of clothing, yet caused Gideon no concern. He found the wind bracing, if anything. The precipitation was very light and intermittent, the sort of flickering drizzle one would expect from the moorlands of Innistrad. Gideon consciously chose a simple white shirt and pants, made of thin fabric meant for warm summer days, his heart picking up the pace as he imagined the result of a leisurely walk through the city in that outfit. He stared at the mirror in his room, examining himself. He picked up the rim of his shirt and pulled back, causing it to tighten around his chest and abdomen, his sharply defined muscles easily visible through it. He did the same with his pants, turning around to see how well they showed his ass off. Gideon nodded to himself. _That should work._

When he finally entered the common room of Victor’s inn, Gideon was thoroughly soaked. His hair had clumped into long strands that gave him a rugged look, so different from his usual perfectly neat image. Just as he had planned, the thin fabric of his outfit had stuck to his skin when wet, leaving very little to the imagination. And not only were his muscles on display, barely concealed by a sheer layer of wet fabric, but his underwear had ridden up along the way, leaving both his ass and his bulge framed temptingly. Gideon felt very self-conscious, he had never really had to actively entice someone before, but his trademark composure betrayed only a mild stiffness, the sort that could be excused away by the slight chill in the air outside. Victor was at his usual table, waiting on food and chatting idly with one of his many admirers, when he casually laid eyes on Gideon as he entered the room. The hieromancer couldn’t help a tiny smirk as he saw Victor do a double take and then completely ignore whoever he was talking to in order to get up and greet him.

“Gideon,” Victor breathed out with awe, then cleared his throat to regain his composure. “You look ravishing,” he added with a wide grin.

And because wherever Victor went, so did the attention of the room he was in, Gideon became rather aware of all the eyes on him. One of the patrons whistled appreciatively and another drunkenly cawed “Hey, who’s the hunk?!”

“That’s the Boros who cleaned up the Ninth!” came the reply from the back of the common room.

“That’s Gideon, you dolt! He’s not Boros anymore! He’s with the Gateless!” another patron corrected stiffly.

“Well, whatever his name is, I say Victor’s a lucky fella, ain’t he?” the drunken patron crowed, then let out a loud, warbling laugh.

It was difficult for Gideon to keep his face from flushing at the attention, but he managed to remain stoic, only a hint of heat in his cheeks.

“Friends, please!” Victor said with a practised chuckle and the confidence of a showman. “We’d like some-”

“Take him upstairs!” a young girl brazenly interrupted from the back, stirring a wave of laughter in the room.

“Give ‘im a good poundin’!” the drunken man added, which was swiftly followed by a slap to his back from the old woman next to him.

“Jozef, you cad!” she chastised him, then turned to the rest of the room. “Back to your meals, you gawkers! Drago didn’t slave over the stove all morning for you lot to let them go cold!”

The room fell into a mischievous silence and Gideon felt his tension dissipate slightly. Victor’s warm dark eyes, back on him, were glinting with avid interest. It felt good to be more than a weapon or a shield. It felt good to be more than a soldier.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Gideon spoke at last. “In private.” There was a lingering silence as the entire room waited for the reply.

“My room is upstairs,” Victor said in an oddly quiet tone, as if the spell would break if he spoke too loud. Gideon smiled and nodded.

Victor led the way, turning back to make sure Gideon was following, as if he couldn’t quite believe what was happening. Gideon could sympathise. His heart was racing. The air had an unreal, almost ethereal quality, like a vivid dream, not sluggish and faded but vibrant and sharp.

When Victor let him in and closed the door behind them, Gideon took the initiative for the first time in over a decade. He leaned forward and pressed Victor gently against the closed door. The warrior looked up at him expectantly, breathing deep and often. Their bodies were barely touching, wet cloth against dry leather. Gideon was taller, but not by much, so he leaned forward and tilted his head to the side. Victor lifted his chin and met him halfway, seeking Gideon’s lips hungrily, but he didn’t stop at that. As they kissed, Gideon placed his hands on Victor’s hips but the man just couldn’t stand still. He clutched at Gideon’s shoulders and pushed himself off the door, wrapping his legs around Gideon’s waist and kissing him from above rather than below.

Gideon groaned as he felt hard leather rub against his trapped erection. He moved his hands to support Victor’s weight and then moved them off the door, stepping backwards blindly to where he hoped was the bed. Victor was making things incredibly difficult, his hands running down Gideon’s back, fingers entwining with wet hair, tongue wrestling his own. It was all so much that when the hieromancer hit the bed with the back of his knees, he lost his balance and fell backwards on it, the weight of both men causing a loud, hideous crack of old wood.

Victor, now on top of Gideon, pulled back from the kiss, pushed his hair out of his face and looked around, momentarily dazed. Gideon looked up and smiled innocently, which sent Victor chuckling when he connected the dots.

“And what do you want to do with me?” Victor asked coyly, a sly smile dancing on his lips.

Gideon ran a hand over Victor’s leather vest and began to undo the clasps as he contemplated the answer. He wanted some time to get himself ready before trying penetration. It had been a long time and he wanted to make sure it all went smoothly. Maybe some other time, then. When he was done, Gideon ran his hands under the vest, feeling the ripples of Victor’s perfectly defined muscles as the emotion mage shrugged the vest off. Victor’s own hands were groping Gideon’s chest through the wet cloth, each hand kneading the hard muscle of Gideon’s pecs. The shudder of pleasure he felt at that almost made the hieromancer forget the question he’d been asked.

He thumbed the waistband of Victor’s leather pants and undid the knot at the front. “I want to taste you,” he said at last, feeling some heat creep up to his face.

Victor thumbed Gideon’s nipples through the fabric and licked his lips, visibly trying to keep his cool and not let his excitement get the better of him. “We can do that,” he said with a nod. “Like this, or me lying down?”

Gideon looked up from the knot and took in the sight of a barechested Victor sitting on his lap, copper-brown skin glinting in the golden-gray afternoon light that filtered through the curtains, like a pillar of male flesh to worship right before him. “Like this,” Gideon said at last, pulling the knot undone. Before he could go any further, Victor’s hands moved from Gideon’s chest to his face and caressed him gently.

“Close your eyes,” he whispered. Gideon obeyed instinctively. “How do you see me, in your mind? How do you feel? Picture me. And let me…” Victor’s voice trailed off, as Gideon felt the distinctive scent of sandalwood in the air, an electric heat where the other man’s fingertips ghosted over his cheeks and forehead, and the characteristic thrum of magic he had come to know so well from working alongside mages. An echoing vibration through both bodies, the quiet crackling of static in the air, then Victor spoke again, awe ringing in his tone. “Woah.”

Gideon opened his eyes, curiosity getting the better of him, and to his surprise he found no visible change. Sure, Victor’s skin looked glossier, his muscles were perhaps a bit more sharply defined, but the battle scars were still there, he was still recognisably himself. Gideon was puzzled for a moment, unable to figure out what was causing the other man to look so awed. And then Victor’s hand tentatively moved towards his thigh, which drew Gideon’s attention to still-clothed parts of Victor’s body. And it was there that he saw it. Victor’s pants were bulging obscenely right between his legs, the leather creaking from the strain, to the point where Gideon was sure he wouldn’t be able to tie the knot that held the pants together again. Even more importantly though, the massive bulge continued running alongside Victor’s right thigh, easily thicker than Gideon’s own meaty wrist, almost down to the knee.

Gideon’s jaw dropped at the sight, he blinked sheepishly trying to comprehend the girth and size of the monster before him. Victor ran a tentative hand along the trapped erection and groaned pleasurably. “So this is what the stoic warrior desires,” he said coyly with a sly grin. “And what a great appetite he has,” he teased, squeezing the bulge in his pants for emphasis.

Gideon’s trademark composure wasn’t enough to hide his embarrassment at the tease. His entire face flushed red and he averted his eyes, which elicited a chuckle from Victor. The man leaned down and kissed Gideon’s neck apologetically. “Don’t be ashamed for knowing what you want,” Victor whispered to the crook where Gideon’s neck met his shoulder. “I wanted to give you exactly what you wanted and you let me deliver.” Victor straightened up and started shimmying out of his pants, which was difficult given their tight fit. Gideon couldn’t help but look back at the other man just to behold the way the leather slowly peeled off the thick, veiny monster between Victor’s legs. He stared reverently as the pants finally made it to Victor’s knees to be kicked off and in so doing, released the giant from its confines, which popped out and performed a lazy arc in the air before landing with a heavy smack atop Gideon’s torso.

The hieromancer stared in awe at the cock resting over his stomach and chest, the kind that would be a source of pride even for a giant or an ogre. He felt a wetness at the edge of his mouth and realised he had drooled a little at the sight of such a mouth-watering treat. It was so hard for Gideon to think clearly. His own dick was straining painfully against the wet cloth of his pants and all he could do was stare in awe, taking in each thick vein, the ridge of the head, the slight curvature upwards, the droplet of glistening precome at the tip. Victor’s hands were peeling off the wet shirt off his chest and having to lift his torso to let Victor pull the garment over his head interrupted his entranced staring. Now that it was in contact with his bare skin, Victor’s cock felt so hot to the touch, pulsing with the man’s heartbeat and the unmistakable vibration of magic.

Victor’s hands were back on Gideon’s pecs, kneading the hard flesh hungrily. Playfully, the man thrust his hips forward, driving the head of his dick right through the cleft between Gideon’s bulging pecs. The hieromancer moved his hands, at last, from Victor’s hips to the pillar of hard flesh before him and attempted to wrap his hands around it. Yet despite Gideon’s large, warrior hands, the monster was far too girthy to be encircled by a single hand. And lengthwise, those same hands barely covered a third of the massive beast. Gideon was still in shock at it, moving his hands back and forth along the veiny surface, watching the foreskin gather at the tip as he drew his hands towards himself, then peel back as he moved them all the way back to the base, exposing the deep red, bulbous head. He moved his hands even further down, to caress Victor’s sac, and was once again surprised by the other man’s magic. What he thought was the entire thing was simply one of his testicles, easily filling his entire palm. It was heavy and hung low, and Gideon had a flush of heat and pleasure at the idea that Victor would make a complete mess of his face when they were done. He could practically _taste_ the seed filling his mouth to the brim and spilling over.

It was Victor’s grunt of pleasure at Gideon’s manhandling that brought him back to the present. The hieromancer’s mind was clouded with lust. He wanted to taste his prize so badly. Victor was swaying lazily back and forth atop him, smearing precome between his pecs. Gideon leaned forward and stuck his tongue out, so that when Victor thrust forward, he bumped the head of his dick against it. Gideon moved his hands so that he was slowly jerking the base of Victor’s cock, while Victor pushed Gideon’s pecs together to create a tight channel of muscle to thrust between.

The two took their time, Victor biting his lower lip at the pleasure from the different sensations; the rough hands at the base, the slick muscle in the middle, and the hot, wet tongue right at the tip. Gideon, in the meantime, was savouring the taste of Victor’s precome every time a new thrust left a fresh drop on his tongue. It was a subtle flavour, salty and slightly smoky, and Gideon wanted more. So much more. His hands squeezed the base of Victor’s cock, milking drop after drop of the glistening liquid. He leaned forward even more, swirling his tongue around the head, making wet slurping sounds as his efforts were rewarded by more and more precome.

Victor was still biting his lower lip, trying in vain to muffle his groans. “Gideon,” he warned, breathing heavily, “I’m getting close.”

Gideon moved his hands to Victor’s hips and dragged him forward effortlessly, the head of Victor’s monster sliding into the hieromancer’s waiting mouth. Victor moaned out loud at that, an almost whiny sound of pure ecstasy. Gideon hungrily sucked on Victor’s dick, or at least the first few inches he could reach. The taste and smell of precome had fogged Gideon’s mind and all he could think about was sucking on the girthy monster before him. He moved his hands up to push his own pecs together roughly, tightening the channel of muscle even more. Victor’s hands went up to Gideon’s still damp hair, fingers sliding in, in a surprisingly tender gesture. Gideon, in turn, had reached that point he knew well where he no longer had any shame. He was slurping and sucking loudly on Victor’s cock, the sounds wet and lewd. There was a very large, dark stain in his pants around his thigh where his trapped dick had been leaking precome the entire time. Gideon felt the urge to touch himself, at least free his erection from its confines, but the dick in his mouth was so good, so warm and filling, its taste so genuinely enjoyable, that he just couldn’t bring himself to stop even for a second.

Victor’s orgasm came in a lightning-quick shudder, an almost electric convulsion of his entire body atop Gideon’s. His dick twitched inside Gideon’s mouth, almost like a horse bucking against its restraints, and then the back of Gideon’s throat was hit by a powerful blast of come. Gideon’s eyes rolled back in pleasure, the strong smell and taste overpowering his senses. Victor’s quick spasms, each echoing a jet of come in Gideon’s mouth, subconsciously drove him to thrust forward, driving his cock straight into Gideon’s throat. Neither of them could see it, but at that point, there was the softest golden glow in Gideon’s neck as his throat distended to accommodate the giant intruder, which continued spewing load after load straight down Gideon’s throat. With Gideon’s gag reflex suppressed by his invulnerability, Victor was able to ride out the first and most intense part of his orgasm by mindlessly thrusting a few inches into Gideon’s tight, willing throat. He couldn’t get any further because of the uncomfortable position, his cock trying fruitlessly to bend downwards, but the delicious friction milked raw, needy moans out of Victor.

Gideon, for his part, had been caught completely by surprise by his own orgasm, going over the edge when he felt his throat distending to make room for the head of the massive cock in his mouth. The pleasurable stretch, the sensation of being filled, the gushing of hot seed down his throat, it was all too much, it was the sort of thing he tried so hard not to fantasise about in the lonely nights, it was the sort of challenge that made him feel exhilarated and alive, the very idea of taking such a massive thing down his throat and then being left with a stomach full of come. The world blurred around him as waves of pleasure crashed into him, his already messy pants becoming an even worse, dirtier mess.

When the most intense part of Victor’s orgasm subsided and he was down to the last few spurts, he pulled back, letting his dick slip out of Gideon’s slack mouth. It was a good thing Gideon’s eyes were closed in ecstasy as his own orgasm rippled through his body, because the last of his seed ended up painting Gideon’s face, hot white streaks covering over half of those handsome, chiseled features. Victor finally let the head of his cock rest on Gideon’s open, panting mouth, one last dollop of seed hanging from the tip. As Gideon came down from his orgasm, he closed his mouth around the head and Victor felt the man’s tongue pressing against the underside of the head, licking the last bit of come off.

His knees weak, Victor held onto the headboard for support. “Gideon…” he muttered weakly, his voice a little hoarse. Gideon couldn’t open his eyes because of the mess of come on his face, but with his lips still wrapped around the head of Victor’s dick, he swirled his tongue around the head in a slow, deliberate fashion. Victor let out a shaky, almost pathetic moan. Gideon smiled widely, oozing satisfaction from every pore.

Gideon reached up and gathered up the come over his eyelids, and then licked off his fingers. He savoured it like a treat, taking a moment to indulge in one of the fantasies he’d never shared with anyone, and then wiped off most of the seed from his face to smear it over Victor’s shaft and his own pecs. Victor thrust his still hard dick slowly, the sticky mess in Gideon’s pecs causing a different kind of friction than before, while the hieromancer lazily suckled on the head. Victor was tormented with little flashes of pain-pleasure, his overstimulated cock twitching as Gideon’s insatiable appetite kept it from getting soft. A strong but gentle hand cupped Victor’s sac and slowly massaged it, almost as if it was trying to coax it into readying up another load.

Victor was still clutching the headboard to stay upright, not trusting his knees to support him, and the sight of Gideon making wordless eye contact with him as he suckled lazily on his dick threatened to rob all of Victor’s remaining strength. Gideon took a firm grasp of Victor’s cock and slapped his own cheek with the head, Gideon’s facial hair causing a shiver of pleasure in the other man at the sharp contact. Thin lines of come remained as Gideon pulled the cock away from his face, which he was happy to lick off. At that point, Victor was fairly certain Gideon was playing with his food. Instead of quelling his hunger, their first orgasm had only whetted Gideon’s appetite.

Then, to Victor’s surprise, Gideon slid away from him, cock still firmly in his hands, until Gideon’s head was right underneath Victor’s taint. It was then that the hieromancer reached up and traced a long lick alongside Victor’s sac, beginning a slow, thorough appreciation of each testicle, gently taking as much as he could into his mouth and then lavishing attention on the rest of the hairless sac. Victor crossed both arms on the headboard and buried his face between them, trying his hardest not to collapse from the pleasure. He groaned into his arms as Gideon gently licked up and down each crevice, teasing the delicate skin with his lips, sending shivers through his spine as hot breath ghosted over spit-slick skin.

And then, just as Victor’s cock was leaking precome again, an unbroken glistening string connecting the tip to the bed, Gideon finally pulled away and repositioned for his heroic feat of the day. He moved off the bed and sat on the floor at the foot of the bed, then looked up so that his mouth would allow a straight passage down his throat. Then he pulled a pliant Victor towards the edge of the bed and guided his cock to his mouth. The wet, tight heat that enveloped his dick actually made Victor’s knees tremble when he tried to kneel, so he ended up having to lie face down on the bed, legs hanging in the air, as Gideon lifted him effortlessly and slowly guided him down, inch after inch, the monster of a dick sliding from his throat into his chest as he finally buried his nose into Victor’s smooth navel.

Victor felt the entirety of his cock constricted by wet heat, the inner muscles of Gideon’s throat and esophagus spasming without rhythm. Gideon lifted Victor’s entire body up and then back down, fucking his throat with Victor’s dick. After a few moments, Gideon had to lift him all the way up, gasping for air, the hot breath around his cock teasing Victor mercilessly. And then, tight heat again, all the way down. There was no way he would last long after such a treatment. Not even a previous orgasm would help. Only a few minutes later and Victor was moaning into the mattress, shooting jet after jet of seed straight down Gideon’s throat.

Gideon only realised that Victor was coming when he felt inexplicably full, like he had just eaten a hearty meal. He lifted Victor up and received a mouthful of seed as confirmation, the salty-smoky taste sending a shudder of pleasure down Gideon’s spine. Gideon swallowed hungrily, trying to meet each spurt of come with a gulp. He was torn between wanting to swallow the entire load and the equally appealing prospect of letting Victor make another mess of his face. In the end, Victor’s copious load made the decision for him, spilling out of his mouth to make a mess out of his chin and chest.

By the time Victor was done, the poor man was a boneless heap that slid down gracelessly to the floor when Gideon left him on the edge of the bed. Gideon was hard as a rock, and when he caught sight of himself in the mirror at the other side of the room, he almost didn’t recognise himself. His hair was messy and clumped in strands, his face and chest were a complete mess of come, as was the entire left leg of his pants. Gideon got to his feet and peeled off the pants, his erection bouncing with a smack against his bulging abs, and just as he was about to finish himself off with his hand, he felt Victor’s hand around his own. He looked down and saw the man looking up at him from the floor, a dazed, blissful look on his face.

Without a word, Victor stumbled onto his knees and grabbed Gideon’s sticky, come-soaked erection with one hand. He gave it a slow, teasing lick from base to tip, savouring Gideon’s salty, slightly sweet come, and then spent agonising, torturous minutes thoroughly licking Gideon’s cock clean. He even took a detour to pay back the man for his attentions to his sac earlier and spent a good long time taking each of Gideon’s testicles in his mouth, gently swirling his tongue around them, and then releasing them with a satisfying pop. Gideon groaned in unabashed pleasure each time Victor found a new, creative way to tease him. Gideon had both hands entwined in Victor’s hair, applying no pressure but offering a reassuring contact.

When Victor finally took Gideon all the way down his throat, a process that took only a couple of tries, Gideon came immediately. He bit his lip and grunted gravely, an almost atavistic sound, and spilled his much more modest load down Victor’s throat, who swallowed it eagerly. The warrior even took the final spurt in his mouth so that he could rise from his kneeling position and pull Gideon in for a kiss, letting Gideon savour the taste of his own seed. 

Gideon wrapped his arms around Victor and pulled them both back onto the bed, the two men kissing slowly in post-orgasmic bliss. Their sweaty, sticky bodies glistened under the diffused afternoon light, their limbs entwined in tender intimacy. The two men kissed playfully for a while, Gideon having thoroughly enjoyed Victor’s reciprocity.

After some time, the hieromancer found himself embracing the other man almost protectively, Victor gladly melting into the gesture as he rested his head on Gideon’s chest.

“You know,” Victor said after a long, comfortable silence, “I’m glad that when I opened myself to change, you wanted me to be almost the same.”

Gideon kissed the top of Victor’s head. “If I like you, I like you for who you are,” he replied, hiding a smile on Victor’s hair.

“I appreciate it still,” Victor insisted. “You are a good man, Gideon Jura. Even if you choose to feel otherwise.”

Gideon said nothing, but he didn’t reject the notion outright. Only a few weeks before, he would’ve. But now? Maybe things weren’t so clear-cut as they seemed. Maybe if someone like Victor affirmed with such certainty that he was a good man, there might be some truth to it. Maybe just a little.

As he lay there in the fading light, gently rubbing circles with his thumb on Victor’s back, he thought that maybe there was more to life than atonement and obligation. Maybe it was acceptable to pursue one’s own happiness, from time to time. So long as it didn’t interfere with his Gatewatch duties…

Gideon watched Victor, who had fallen solidly asleep in his arms. He admired his trust, his openness, his willingness to pursue what he wanted and make himself and others happy. Willing to change, even temporarily, to give someone else a good time. Falling asleep in the arms of someone he had only met for a couple of weeks. All things that were so foreign to Gideon’s guarded, stoic nature. He felt sentimental, like he had been in the old days of Theros.

“Hrmm…” Gideon’s reminiscing was cut short by Victor’s stirring. The hieromancer blinked. It was dark out. He had been ruminating in the dark for who knew how long. “Hey,” Victor said with a soft smile, “what do you say we bathe and then I buy you dinner?”

Gideon found himself smiling back. “I’d love to.”


End file.
